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US citizens: As Republicans try to claim that Libby's lies were just a "technicality", write a letter to your local newspaper saying that lying to start a war is a serious crime. The MoveOn site provides an easy way to do it.
The feds got Al Capone for tax evasion--a secondary crime when compared with the multiple murders he was guilty of. If charges of perjury and obstruction of justice bring down Libby for protecting the gangster kingpin he works for, that's justice.
Counting the human cost of the war in Iraq.
A US court ruled that the FBI needs a specific court order to get the data on where you were with your cell phone.
That's the right ruling--but I am still not going to carry around a cell phone, broadcasting my location for permanent records.
Juma al Dossary was tortured in Guantanamo, then threatened with further punishment more because he exposed the torture to a visiting lawyer.
Prosecutor Fitzgerald has extended his investigation to include the fabrication of the fraudulent "evidence" proving Hussein's purchase of uranium ore. This could lead to charges against Rove and Cheney.
The charges against Libby helped Cheney to remember the principle that suspects are "innocent until proven guilty"--a principle he conveniently when it comes to suspects he is not friends with. If Patrick Fitzgerald were investigating enemies of Bush and Cheney, they would call for torturing the suspects, or just throwing them in prison without a trial.
Serbian police have been arrested for a massacre in Kosovo.
Israel retaliated for a bombing by punishing a large civilian population. It uses the occasional rare attack as an excuse to cut off negotiations until the Palestinian authority cracks down--which it is in no position to do, because Israel has kept it weak. In effect, Israel prevents peace and puts the blame on the Palestinians.
Where Plamegate ought to lead.
Peter Zendran is personally fighting back against persistent harassnent by Rhode Island police.
Bush regime officials, by authorizing torture, have violated a US law that provides for life imprisonment, even the death penalty.
Bush would clearly get the death penalty under this law, but since the death penalty is wrong, Bush should spend his life behind bars for what he has done.
An American in the Bush forces is now in prison for refusing to go back to Iraq. I read elsewhere that he followed the procedures for conscientious objection, but his superiors dishonestly refused to even recognize that he had done so.
An officer who trained death squads in El Salvador is now in Iraq doing the same thing.
Rich nations are accused of giving 'nothing' to help the people made homeless by the Kashmir earthquake.
An autopsy says the Iraqi prisoner was suffocated to death, but nobody working for Bush has been charged.
Hofstra University is attacking students who peacefully protested Coca Cola Company. See the 7th story in killercoke.org.
A Republican has been convicted of laundering a large amount of money for the Bush campaign by dividing it up and passing it through various others.
I am sure this is just the tip of the iceberg of the corruption of Bush campaign finance. But I wonder, why did they bother? The Republicans were sure to win the vote count, no matter who won the vote.
The Bush administration withheld crucial information from a Congressional investigation so as to put blame on the CIA's "mistakes" for was in fact the administration's dishonesty.
Of course, we knew this at the time, but now there's clear proof.
Iran's president called for the destruction of Israel.
Israel's occupation of Palestine should be ended, because Palestinians have a right to live a life that isn't a prison. Israeli Jews also have that right. I don't mention that as often, because it is is not under much threat; those Palestinians that try armed attacks cannot harm more than a tiny fraction of Israelis. Iran conceivably could.
The best way to prevent that from really happening is to bring Iran to peace with the rest of the world.
The Australian government is trying to rush through a terror law that goes beyond what Bliar and Bush have done. It wanted to keep the law's text secret until the last minute, but a state published the text. The government still plans to rush the bill into law without allowing time for opponents to study what it means.
What's the rush? There is no possible legitimate reason--only a tyrant's reason.
Israel has tried to interfere with the weekly Bil'in nonviolent protests by arresting many of the people who normally participate. But the protest occurred anyway. Afterwards, some soldiers threw stones at other soldiers, perhaps as part of a black propaganda campaign.
Malcolm Kendall-Smith refuses to return to Iraq to fight for the Bush forces, on the grounds that the war is illegal and his orders to fight there are illegal too. When the UK military put him on trial for this, his defense will have to show that Bliar and Dubya committed the supreme war crime: starting a war of aggression.
Here is a summary of the case against them.
Here are more details on the new terrorist laws that the government of Australia wants to impose.
Australia is considering " biometric passports" with RFIDs. Once someone cracks the security--which surely is possible--it will be fairly easy for anyone to snarf the info off the RFID as an Australian passes by.
Galloway challenges US senators to charge him with perjury, so he can fight their accusations in court.
Was the assassination of Hariri carried out by the US and Israel so as to blame it on Syria?
Leaking the name of Valerie Plame is just a symptom. Here's a summary of the larger issue: how the Bushmen faked "intelligence" information, and corrupted its evaluation, so as to fabricate a case for the war that they had already decided on.
What's the right way to oppose an unjust war? To "support the troops" and win their support for ending the war, or to condemn what they are doing? This article says that the latter is both right and more effective.
I don't agree 100% with its conclusions. I think that any soldiers in the Bush forces who refuse to fight this war do deserve our admiration and support. By refusing to participate in the evil, they cease to deserve criticism for it. And they are probably doing so at great risk or cost, which takes courage. I think we should admire this courage.
And the Bush forces troops do deserve one kind of support: getting them out of Iraq.
Mothers of murdered innocent Iraqis have a stronger case to plead, as innocent victims, than mothers of Bush forces troops who died trying to subjugate Iraq for Bush. However, we don't have to choose one or the other; we can support both. And when mothers of Bush forces troops become anti-war activists, like Cindy Sheehan, their work deserves admiration--like that of any effective anti-war activist.
Speaking of Cindy Sheehan, here's her report on a protest in DC.
The counter-protestor who was carrying a sign for money is typical of the dishonesty of the right wing.
Saddam Hussein's defense lawyers have refused to work because they fear for their lives. One of them was killed, apparently by Iraqi police.
Human Rights Watch presented evidence that Saddam Hussein did use gas against Kurds--not in Hallabja during the Iran-Iraq war, but afterwards in another location.
Has anything refuted this?
Police in Florida arrested a teenage anti-war protestor who was holding a sign at the side of the road. Then they told lies about him to make it look justified.
This is standard police behavior--so common it isn't considered newsworthy. But if we want a free society, we must not allow police to get away with such conduct. Police, who can operate openly, are more dangerous than the same number of gangsters without badges, who have to hide what they do.
We have to teach every policeman a lesson: if he twists the facts to harass citizens, or bears false witness against them, he will go to prison for a long time. Until we achieve this, the police will be a menace to democracy.
Plamegate: Worse than Watergate.
An Australian newspaper warns readers: read this story now, because if the same thig happens with new "anti-terror" laws, nobody will be allowed to tell the public about it.
If you can find a copy of the article in the Financial Times about Col. Lawrence Wilkinson's accusations against Cheney and Rumsfeld, could you email it to me? rms (at) gnu (dot) org.
Even more flaws in Bush's claim that Saddam Hussein worked with Al Qa'ida.
The Bush regime has admitted sending troops into Syria.
General Karpinski says that the orders for torture came straight from the top.
The connections are outlined here.
Confirming the administration's continued support for torture, Cheney is pressing for an exception for the CIA, in the proposed law that would prohibit torture by US government agents.
The UN Human Rights Commission is now investigating US violations of treaties protecting the rights of prisoners.
Republicans are already preparing to smear prosecutor Ferguson, so as to get their leaders off the hook for crimes such as perjury and treason.
The new president of Poland is a right-wing extremist that would be dear to Bush's heart. This is bringing him into conflict with the EU.
A new disease: Gonorrhea Lectim.
The government of New Zealand is planning to introduce "biometric passports", giving the US what it wants.
If you live in New Zealand, talk to your legislators and government and say you want them to make these optional--not mandatory! And spread the word.
Italian intelligence fabricated the fake evidence about Iraqi uranium purchases, and brought it directly to the White House after the CIA rejected it as unbelievable. Berlusconi (il ducino) is tied directly to these events.
Half of the world's coral reefs could be dead in 40 years. 20% already are.
Since coral reefs help protect coasts from storm damage, the death of reefs will combine with rising seas and increasingly severe hurricanes, to cause increased damage to coastal areas and increased loss of land. All three are caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
Suspicion that Bush is deliberately provoking civil war in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the puppet government's police are operating as death squads.
As part of Bush's War on Public Safety, the US government officially lets trucking companies make their drivers drive for up to 11 hours a day. As a further blow to public safety, the US government does not enforce that limit.
In the UK, when the police kill someone, they then demonize him to make it look excusable.
In principle, police who kill innocent people can be prosecuted. In fact, the criteria for doing so effectively give police total impunity.
Scientists estimate global warming of 1 to 6 degrees C in this century. 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, a rise of around 6 degrees nearly wiped out life on Earth.
But that's not all the bad news. It appears that a smaller temperature rise released lots of methane that was frozen under the Arctic seas, and that this caused the temperature to rise even further.
Nobody knows how far away we are from a repeat. One more degree? Two? Three?
Global warming is causing drought in Africa. All the recently agreed increase in aid to Africa may be eaten up by compensating for the harm that the rest of the world is doing to Africa.
Public opposition convinced some Republicans not to support the severe cuts in social programs that the neocons desire for ideological reasons.
Bush seems to have let the "road map" die, while Israel embarks on renewed annexation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
At least 21 prisoners of the US were killed, autopsies show.
A prisoner of the Bush administration wrote a clever message, giving support to his captors in exaggerated terms, to tell us that he is not allowed to speak freely and we should not believe what he says.
There are accusations that the vote on the Iraqi constitution was rigged. That's no surprise--what else would Bush do in an election?
The Bush regime continues to press for war with Syria. This despite the fact that Syria has cooperated with the Bush regime against Al Qa'ida. (The US has delivered people to Syria to be tortured.)
Iran says that the UK was behind recent terrorist bombings.
There isn't enough detail here to judge the claim. I don't know if the Foreign Minister of Iran would lie about such things. I am sure that the Prime Minister of the UK would.
Using disasters--natural or otherwise-- to militarize the US.
Bush has a long history of trying to give the military more power over civilians in the US. The indication that they are excuses rather than reasons is that they change from time to time.
Scott Ritter warns that a fake terror attack could be the Bush administration's next tactic.
Of course, there are plenty of reasons to think they did this already.
Did Saddam Hussein use poison gas against Kurdish Iraqis?
U.S. News/Harvard/BP Ban Reporters from First Amendment Room.
The policy of using tax breaks to encourage business investment are unwise, as well as unjust.
Protestors against US army recruiters in US colleges have been beaten up by police, and threatened with arrest for "trespassing" if they set foot in the schools where they study. Campaigns to defend them are still under way.
I wonder where the idea of threatening them with "trespassing" came from. It's not the sort of thing that police would do spontaneously; someone must have ordered them to do it. Who was it?
A court in Spain has indicted Bush forces officers for the murder of a Spanish journalist in Iraq.
The Bush forces have a pattern of attacking journalists, but this is something that the mainstream US media don't dare mention.
The Iraqi "government" took a poll, and found that 80% of Iraqis want the invading troops out--and 45% support fighting to drive them out. (I am surprised it isn't more.)
Independent journalist Dahr Jamail provides a picture of what Iraq is like under the Bush forces' occupation.
An obvious gap in the investigation of Hariri's killing could be a sign of a rush to pin the blame on Syria.
I would not put such an assassination past the government of Syria--or the government of the US. This gap ought to be filled, with investigation.
The CIA is whitewashing its employees for acts of torture, some of which were fatal to the prisoners being tortured.
In effect, the CIA has told its staff, "Kill anyone, we don't care."
Israeli settlers are continuing their campaigns of sabotage against Palestinians.
This is standard practice for settlers; they try all sorts of violence, up to and including murder, to drive out the Palestinians that live near them.
Another silly scandal erupts over burning the corpses of Taliban fighters.
Cremation does not hurt the dead--they can't feel it. What about the living? They have merely been insulted. We should not exaggerate the wrong of insulting anyone. However, mere insults that don't make a thoughtful point are foolish. There are many things to condemn about Islam. When we insult Islam, let's do it so as to make a point, not merely to infuriate Muslims.
Above all, let's not let this distract us from the killing and torture of living people that the Bush regime regularly practices.
Jonathan Magbie, crippled by a drunk driver as a child, used medical marijuana. Ostensibly his sentence was 10 days in the Washington DC jail, for possession of one joint. In fact, his sentence was death.
Wal Mart, facing consumer pressure, says it will impose more rules on its manufacturers about environmental protection and equal opportunity. However, what it says it will do is not enough to imply it will no longer abuse its workers.
When an astrologer in India predicted his own death, he attracted a lot of media attention. This provided a great opportunity for Rationalists International to debunk astrology before a large audience. Let's pity the poor astrologer--for not dying.
Bush wants to use the WTO to prohibit labels on products about their energy efficiency. This is in the name of "competition".
This proposal clearly shows what kind of competition the WTO is in favor of: at the expense of transparency, the environment, and everything else that matters. The WTO gives business too much power, and it must be abolished.
The practice of going to an international agency to effect changes in domestic law is known as "policy laundering". I suggest that the US executive branch should be forbidden to advocate any treaty provisions that would require changes in US law if the treaty were signed, unless it has the prior specific authorization of Congress, which could be given only in a separate motion, not as part of any larger bill.
The Canadian spy chief said, in a conference, that the war in Iraq makes the world a more dangerous place.
Another speaker said, "We have lost the moral high ground to the wrong people, and we need to get it back." The first step is to stop doing things that are very very wrong.
Robert Fisk: Iraq has descended into anarchy, with insurgents controlling areas half a mile from the Green Zone.
The government of Taiwan will ignore the anti-flu drug patent on moral grounds.
I just wish they wouldn't verbally kowtow to the patent holder while they're about it.
New satelite measurements show that Amazon rainforest destruction is happening twice as fast as previously thought.
Another article explains that pulling down one tree in a rain forest tends to damage surrounding trees, due to the vines that connect them; pulling down a few percent of the trees in an area tends to make it dry up and makes it vulnerable to subsequent fires.
Large areas of permafrost in Alaska now have a temperature of -1C. When they melt, they will release methane into the atmosphere, giving a big jolt to global temperatures.
Multinational companies continue trying to privatize water supplies. When they do this, they usually raise the rates by several times and cut off poor people from water supply.
The people in charge of FEMA received timely information about the broken levee in New Orleans, and ignored it.
Bad as the Bush regime's response to the flooding was, we should not let it distract us from things that were even worse:
Cutting funds to repair the levee in order to commit war crimes in Iraq.
Not helping poor people to evacuate the city.
The Japanese Prime Minister continues worshiping at the Yasakuni shrine, symbol of Japanese aggression and atrocities in World War II.
Congressional Republicans continue using the hurricane damage as an excuse to screw most Americans, but some moderate Republicans won't support it, and they have had to delay the vote.
When they talk about "disciplined spending", that is total bullshit. Clinton left the US government a surplus; it was Bush who sent the US into deficit.
The Israeli Army is testing new not-usually-lethal weapons against the nonviolent protestors in Bil'in.
Saddam's trial does not follow international standards for fair trials. Meanwhile, witnesses are scared to testify against him.
Uri Avnery: War is a State of Mind
Greenpeace says China's economic growth is causing environmental disaster all around the world. Projections of China's future growth lead to unustainable consumption which would require drastic changes in the economic system.
Of course, this just could mean that something else will happen to derail China from growing that far.
While oil companies like to pretend that global warming is uncertain, other companies are rushing to invest in the Arctic Ocean, becoming accessible as the ice melts.
These companies, as well as the oil companies, will try to prevent any solution to the problem of global warming, and to keep the Earth on the road to catastrophe.
How Israel persecutes Palestinian shepherds (it starts with stealing their sheep).
The British troops in the Bush forces are cracking; some are supporting public pressure to pull them out of Iraq.
A UK airman has refused the order to go back to Iraq, saying that it is an illegal order. He faces a trial, since the Bliar regime does not want to admit that the order was illegal.
As Saddam Hussein goes on trial for various massacres he ordered, Human Rights Watch is concerned that the trial will not be fair. His crimes appear to be enormous, but he deserves a fair trial, and only a fair trial can properly establish his guilt. Meanwhile, everyone in Iraq must be wondering when their new dictator will go on trial.
The Bush regime has a systematic pattern of announcing "terror alerts" when it will help their image in the media. Here the pattern is laid out with 13 examples.
The New York subway bomb threat hoax has been attributed to an Iraqi "informant". But we don't know whether he was tortured--or whether he sought to give the Bush forces what they wanted, much like those who produced the so-called "intelligence" proving that Saddam Hussein had bought uranium ore.
Iraq's constitution has probably been approved, but since it was not established under free and democratic circumstances, this is not enough to make it legitimate.
The Iraqi Constitution, written under the Bush regime, follows Islam in denying women equal rights.
It may be that most Iraqis are thinking about the constitution in terms other than human rights. It is also possible that most of them now support Islamic law. Bush has given Islamists a great opportunity, because they gain prestige from standing up to him, and the general insecurity enables them to intimidate people who disagree with them. They might look bad for that, if Bush were not there to make them look good by contrast.
However, laws that trample human rights cannot be legitimized by any circumstances. Human rights and democracy together are needed; one without the other makes no sense. But Bush seems to have created a situation in Iraq where the one prevents the other. So much for the phony goal of implanting "freedom and democracy".
US government torture is not limited to Iraq and Guantanamo. The US does not hesitate to torture people who use marijuana to relieve their pain. Steven Tuck, who grew marijuana to cope with the pain from a parachuet injury in the Army, was arrested in a hospital, then subjected to denial of his prescription painkiller, morphine, as well as to the pain of withdrawal from that morphine. Not to mention denial of the marijuana. This cruel punishment comes before his trial.
When I imagine being in his situation, threatened with prison for trying to relieve permanent pain, prison which would include torture through the infliction of that very pain, I think of suicide as the way to escape from torture while achieving something useful for others. I imagine taking cyanide in the court immediately after hearing the verdict, if convicted.
Is Bush planning to attack Iran to distract the public from Iraq?
A profile of Bunnatine Greenhouse, who tried to uphold the rules designed to prevent corruption in government contracts, and was removed from her job as part of Bush's War on Integrity.
A former Greenpeace leader says that the group has degenerated into corporate careerism.
Article: Why can't the left face the Stolen Elections of 2004 & 2008?
As part of the War on the Environment, Bush now plans to relax air quality rules and allow coal-burning plants to increase their emission of poisons.
A letter on the Animal Rights movement.
A Colombian congress member and union leaders are getting death threats from paramilitaries supported by the Colombian government and its masters in the US.
The treaty between the US and Colombia, "Plan Colombia", was published only in English so that the public in Colombia would not notice how the US gives Colombia step-by-step orders for what to do.
In response to Bennett's idea of aborting all babies of Blacks, one commentator suggests aborting all babies of neo-cons to cut down on white-collar crime.
Soon many of those "neo-cons" will be just plain "cons".
Another suggestion to reduce white-collar crime--aborting all white male babies likely to go to Harvard Business School.
Bush: "We cannot accept that there can be free democratic elections in a country under foreign military occupation".
As the police who viciously attacked sleeping protestors in Genoa go on trial, Il Ducino is pushing a law that would get them off the hook.
This article does not mention that a bunch of armed "Black Block anarchists" were seen in a police station, suggesting that the violence attributed to the Black Block was a police provocation.
Uri Avnery's views on Iraq.
The EFF has cracked the code which Xerox color printers use to label every document with when it was printed and on which printer.
This code will be perfect for the US and other governments to track down "subversives" who say things that the government wants to suppress. I'm sure it is also useful for detecting amateur counterfeit money, but there are other ways to do that.
So if you are printing anything for political reasons, buy a printer with cash in another city and don't give your name. Before they make that illegal!
The US Green Party warns that Bush plans to treat disaster areas like Iraq.
Q: How did Bush use religion to make himself the "teflon president"?
A: He practiced no-stick (gnostic) Christianity.
(Pun invented by Richard Stallman.)
The Bushmen are starting to admit that the resistance in Iraq is not going to disappear any time soon.
Halliburton employs foreign workers in sweatshop conditions in Iraq.
With all the millions they squander, you'd think they could at least pay their employees a good wage. But that would cut into the millions left for crooks like Cheney.
Ski areas in the Alps and the Rockies are trying to forget that global warming is making their snow disappear. One town in Switzerland covered its glacier to protect it from the summer heat.
An unusual drought in the Amazon rainforest, perhaps due to global warming, poses the threat of contributing to more global warming.
This is not the only form of positive feedback that global warming has encountered, and it suggests that a bigger disaster than currently forecast will soon be upon us.
Israel divides Palestinians into those "resident in Gaza" and those "resident in the West Bank", and doesn't allow them to visit, and refuses to recognize that they have moved. Palestinians who are caught living in the wrong half of Palestine face being arrested and separated from their families.
The annexation wall has turned Palestinian villages surrounded by "Greater Jerusalem" into prisons; their inhabitants are forbidden to leave.
Israeli troops were caught disguised as Arabs, urging Palestinian youths to throw stones at other Israeli troops.
Where I saw that link, in the "Other Israel" newsletter, it also said:
The report of Haaretz English does not contain all of the Hebrew version. In the Hebrew version the soldiers didn't disperse the fake demonstrators but pretend to arrest them and removed them from the scene (rather than "disperse them".) The Hebrew also refers to the tear gas and the salt bullets used by the IDF. The Hebrew also says: "A few months ago the same unit operated in a demonstration in Bili'in. On that occasion a military judge determined that the Prison Service [to which the Masada unit belongs -- translator] has no authority to operate in the [Occupied] Territories. It is unclear whether a special permit for their operation was obtained on this occasion.
The Blair regime arrested protestors for No2ID before they could even begin their peaceful protest.
Blair's complete hostility towards the idea of the rights of the accused, towards the idea of any human rights that limit government power, can be seen in this recent speech. Search for "In turn however I believe".
Not content with killing Colombians through the work of state-sponsored paramilitaries, Bush also fights against abortion rights there.
Robert Fisk has doubts that a Syrian general who excercised Syrian power in Lebanon really committed suicide, as the official story claims.
In Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, government aid to the survivors of the earthquake is effectively nonexistent, and it is blocked partly because Pakistan invested little in infrastructure in previous years.
How much like Bush!
The editor of a womens' rights magazine in Afghanistan has been charged with blasphemy--because he published an article criticizing the barbarous penalties of Islamic law. He faces the death penalty.
Islamic law is vicious and cruel, and illustrate the evil side of religion--also visible in other religions.
The Bush forces accuse Iran of providing explosives training to the Iraqi resistance.
If Iran is indeed doing this, it is only turnabout. Look at all the countries that provide aid and training to the Bush forces.
Democrats ask for an outside investigation of whether a federal prosecutor was demoted to stop him from investigating a Bush crony.
Three New Orleans police were arrested after they were caught on film beating up a black man. One of them attacked the film crew, too. Two federal agents joined in the attack.
Meanwhile, it seems that the biggest looters during the hurricane were police who stole 200 new cars. This is nothing compared to the looting that Halliburton is doing now, of course. Of course, the US mass media focus on demonizing the poor people who stole food and water to save their families' lives.
A study by the United Nations University says that in a few years there will be 50 million people fleeing from environmental disasters.
In a Jail in Cuba Beat the Heart of a Poet.
What Morocco did to those who failed to cross the Spanish border was harrowing.
Morocco was quick to deal with the Africans who tried storming the Spanish border: it dumped them in the Sahara desert with no food or water. Because of this, Spain cannot expel illegal immigrants to Morocco.
Another man-made "natural" disaster--caused by deforestation of El Salvador.
Some former chief judges in the UK condemned Blair's plans for internment of suspects and penalizing opinions.
Bush is working on plans to imprison millions of Americans in internment camps--like what the US did to Japanese-Americans in World War II, but on a bigger scale.
The Slow Drowning of New Orleans.
New Orleans should be rebuilt--but moved to high ground!
Al Jazeera is launching an English-language TV service. The people supported by the dishonest corporate US media are already accusing Al Jazeera of their brand of dishonesty.
First Intelligent Design, then Intelligent Falling--now, Intelligent Delivery (of babies) will be taught in schools, as an alternative to secular and materialistic theories of human reproduction.
The Bush regime seems to have canceled a plan to protect and clean up the Great Lakes.
As Bush directs the EPA and other agencies to stop protecting the environment and human health, states are suing the federal government to block Bush.
Uri Avnery: Why Israel should negotiate a permanent peace with the Palestinians now--while Israel is strong, and most Palestinians want peace.
Bush is using bird flu as an excuse to ask for more power for the army to intervene in civilian affairs.
It is absurd to propose quarantining a region of the US to stop a disease like the flu. But especially so with bird fly. Quarantine would be entirely ineffective against bird flu as long as it can still infect birds. It is being spread by wild birds, which are notorious for their refusal to obey police or even soldiers.
An EU court ruled that decisions of the UN Security Council override all ordinary human rights, including the right to a trial before punishment.
There are reports that Iran is supporting the Iraqi resistance.
These reports come from the Bush forces, so they might be fabricated. They might also be true--and why shouldn't Iran help the Iraqis overthrow the conquerors of their country?
China is exporting cosmetics made from prisoners who were executed.
The US and the UK don't go this far. But they do have large armies of prisoners "employed" for a pittance to make products that go on sale to the general public. For a government inclined to support business rather than citizens, prison slave labor has two benefits: it facilitates keeping large numbers of people in prison, and it keeps wages down even outside the prison.
Bush says that "God told him" to invade Iraq.
However, the one whose voice he heard need not have been a real deity.
He also says that Islamic fundamentalists are evil because they are trying to subjugate nations to theocratic rule. That could be a description of his own supporters.
Rep. De Lay faces two more criminal charges.
The hunger strike in Guantanamo is still going strong, and the Bush regime is force-feeding 21 prisoners through tubes in their noses.
The diaries of a Vietnamese doctor who died protecting her patients from the invading US Army--published decades later, by the military intelligence officer who collected them after her death.
The Supreme Court of Israel has prohibited the army's practice of taking Palestinian civilians hostage and using them as "human shields".
A Philippine union leader, in the union on strike against Nestle, was assassinated--apparently with police involvement.
It is part of a pattern of violence against unions there.
The Republicans are trying to destroy the Endangered Species Act to "protect" profits of business.
This is part of the general short-term outlook of business. Business will risk causing an irreparable loss for everyone, to get more money in the short term.
The US Senate voted to prohibit torture--over the objections of Bush and Cheney. Their moral depravity is too much even for most Republicans.
Senator Frist's record of corruption.
The former murderous dictator of Chad faces extradition for trial in Belgium. If not for US pressure, other dictators might face this too.
I think people in Europe should push for Belgium to defy Bush and reinstate its law of universal jurisdiction for mass-murderers, so that someday Bush may face justice there.
The Pentagon does a sloppy job of testing soldiers for contamination with DU (Deadly Uranium), so some states are offering National Guard troops a better test.
Drug-resistant E Coli has spread around the UK. It will surely spread around the world.
A major part of the cause of this problem was the practice of feeding antibiotics to cattle. It's a typical instance of how business endangers people's lives for short-term profit.
Tigers may be wiped out if China abolishes its trade ban on tiger parts.
Kuchma, the former president of Ukraine, ordered the murder of a journalist. An ex-minister who was going to testify about this was found shot--supposedly suicide, but one is entitled to doubt it.
The people who overturned Kuchma last year have fallen into feuding, and seem to be just as corrupt as their predecessors, whom they are also pardoning.
If Hamas wins the Palestinian elections, it would impose its fundamentalist rules on everyone. It is the Palestinian equivalent of the theocratic Christians that support Bush.
The religious nuts who don't believe in evolution have proposed a "scientific" alternative, "intelligent design". Now there's an "intelligent" alternative to the theory of gravitation: "intelligent falling".
There is No God ( And You Know It).
A Labor party member who shouted "nonsense" when leaders defended the occupation of Iraq was physically ejected--then they accused him of terrorism to stop him coming back in.
Warming land and sea, and melting ice, are rapidly driving many familiar species towards extinction--as well as thousands of unfamiliar ones. Scientists project that arond 40% of species of life will die out in 45 years due to human activity.
The European Union, obedient to the media companies, is planning its own version of the infamous US "broadcast flag".
The GAO says Bush's payments for journalism were illegal partisan political use of government funds.
A secret, leaked US government inquiry found that the Iraq war directly contributed to the disaster in New Orleans.
More Bush forces troops reveal torturing prisoners. And a captain who tried to stop it found that his superiors were more interested in preventing it from coming out.
Attacking human rights for the sake of copyright, the Motion Picture Association (of India) got a search warrant that covers the entire city of New Delhi. This is to stamp out sale of what they call "pirate" copies.
I'm not against having a copyright system covering commercial copying of movies. However, these same companies want to oppress individuals, too. Meanwhile, to grant such broad search warrants defeats the whole point of search warrants, which is that the police can't just go anywhere and look at anything. When governments trample human rights for the sake of business, that is the road to fascism.
Local authorities along with the US government played a role in preventing the Red Cross from providing aid in New Orleans just after the hurricane.
Others who ignored the police drove in and out of the city safely. Surely there was no reason to keep the Red Cross out.
India's Supreme Court has ruled that projects that involve cutting down a forest have to pay the full environmental cost of the loss of that forest.
Italian prosecutors continue their pressure on CIA kidnappers.
William Bennett was criticized for appearing to suggest aborting every Black baby as a way to reduce the crime rate. He says he presented it as an example of an unacceptable solution.
I don't know what he actually said, but aborting _unwanted_ babies, of any race, is a great way to reduce both crime and many other kinds of suffering.
This 2002 article, from the LA Times, reports that Rumsfeld was considering a proposal to create an organization to provoke "enemies" into attacking the US, which would provide an excuse to destroy them.
(I put "enemies" in quotation marks, because they might not be real enemies until thus provoked.)
And perhaps this is what we are seeing in Iraq.
Tali Fahima, a young Israeli woman, faces absurd criminal charges for helping in day-care for Palestinian children in a refugee camp.
The UK is going to ban sale of junk food in schools. I think it is a good idea--why should schools train or encourage children to eat badly?
"We have been lied to about the war. I dared to speak the truth."
Cheney's chief of staff identified Valerie Plame to Judith Miller.
Republican leader Tom DeLay was indicted for conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws. As a result, he had to step down from his leadership post.
The sad thing is that most Democrats in Congress are not much better. They all have to suck up to business--and unless we put an end to that, we will not have democracy.
The EU has imposed limited sanctions against Uzbekistan. This won't be enough to change things by itself, but it is a start.
Some Bush forces troops express their hatred for all Iraqis along with gruesome pictures of dead Iraqis.
To make a big fuss about these photos is foolish; they don't hurt anyone. If you find them disgusting, don't look at them. (I don't expect to look at them.) But the attitude expressed, an attitude of "kill all Iraqis", is immensely important. It shows why the idea that the Bush forces would give Iraqis freedom and democracy is absurd. Reuters has complained to the Bush regime about its interference with journalism in Iraq.
The Bush forces have killed several journalists, and often lied about the circumstances. I think the first instance was when a tank shelled the office of Al Jazeera in Baghdad, in a hotel filled with foreign journalists. The Bush forces then said the tank was returning fire for shots from the hotel--but recordings made by other journalists proved this was a lie.
Only one Iraqi brigade in the Bush forces is capable of attacking on its own. The rest are full of patriotic Iraqis.
Bush has greatly expanded the use of political appointees in US agencies--part of his War on Integrity.
The Bush regime seems to be stepping up production of biological weapons of mass distruction. We need some UN weapons inspectors!
An FCC statement claims that the police have veto power over what software Americans can run on their computers.
In the warming Arctic, the disappearance of sea ice has begun to remove ice that has been stable for years.
Police in Nashville beat a man to death. He had been expelled from a concert for "acting strangely", but he was not violent.
Greenpeace has proposed a plan for moving Europe to renewable energy sources which would eliminate 80% of CO2 emissions by 2050, without nuclear power.
In the UK, people with "severe learning disabilities" are forbidden to have sweethearts. Just kissing them, even if they request it, is a crime that can lead to a sentence of life imprisonment.
It's not quite as bad as Iran, but it is heading that way.
I'm told that the Neue Zürcher Zeitung published a story saying there were some sort of minerals to be mined in the area that the (real) Bushmen are being forced to leave.
More info about clearing out Bushmen for diamond mining can be found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalahari.
Blair plans to attack freedom of the press, imprison suspects for three months, and criminalize certain opinions about selected historic events.
The Blair strategy is clear: ask for outrageous restrictions, compromise, and get part of them. Then, when there's another excuse (for there always will be one), demand even more. It adds up to a steady campaign against human rights.
Violence in New Orleans during the hurricane was greatly exaggerated.
This exaggeration may have killed people, if it was the motive for stopping the Red Cross from delivering supplies, or stopping refugees from walking out.
500 Africans stormed the Spanish border fences with ladders in their desperation to get to Europe.
As poverty increases in Africa and people there lose hope, these hundreds may become thousands, and ultimately millions fleeing rising seas.
Abolishing school fees in Burundi led to a jump in enrollment.
But why did Burundi have school fees? Probably because the World Bank and IMF imposed them, as they did in other African countries.
The FBI assassinated a Puerto Rican Independence leader.
Arresting him for bank robbery would have been appropriate. Keeping doctors away while he bled to death was simply murder. Telling lies to make it look justified is typical of police. If you are on a jury, don't assume that police witnesses are more likely to tell the truth than the defendant!
I have never supported the goal of independence for Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans have had multiple chances to vote on independence, and they always voted to preserve the status quo. Those Puerto Ricans who would prefer independence are free to try to convince the rest, but I never saw reason to take a side in the matter.
Now, however, I might support the campaign, simply to help some people escape from the rule of the Bush regime.
The Kurds falsified the election in a mostly-Sunni part of Iraq last January, and they may do so again so as to fake "approval" of the proposed Constitution.
The true story of how multinational drug companies took liberties with African lives.
In South Africa, the head of the labor movement has denounced President Mbeki and his ministers for misleading the public about AIDS.
5 million people there have HIV, and only 60,000 of them are getting treatment. The irrationality of Mbeki and his ministers is part of the reason, but here's another, not mentioned here: the US and the WTO are doing all they can to prop up drug company profits, even if it means millions die.
In South Africa, the head of the labor movement has denounced President Mbeki and his ministers for misleading the public about AIDS.
5 million people there have HIV, and only 60,000 of them are getting treatment. The irrationality of Mbeki and his ministers is part of the reason, but here's another, not mentioned here: the US and the WTO are doing all they can to prop up drug company profits, even if it means millions die.
A gay Iranian, now seeking asylum, describes how he was tortured in Iran for being gay.
Students in Cali, Colombia, supported protests by people whose water has been cut off. In response, the police paramilitaries attacked the student protestors--and shot and killed a student.
Al Sadr is now fighting the Bush forces openly in Baghdad.
And the electricity in Baghdad still does not work.
Of course, the Bush forces say they are working on it, and things will be better any day now. The same thing they have said all along.
Bush has already corrupted the National Park system. Now there's a Republican plan to sell off some national parks and commercialize the rest.
The same bill would weaken pollution controls on oil refineries, using the temporary damaged states of some refineries as an excuse to create a permanent health danger.
Uzbekistan has begun show trials against protestors whose testimony appears to have been written for them. At the same time it claims the protestors were radical Islamists, it also says that Western media stirred up the protests. The combination is absurd.
Interviews with members of Iraq Veterans Against the War at a peace demonstration.
Republicans propose about a trillion dollars in cuts to "compensate" for the $200 billion cost of rebuilding. Here's a complete list of the Republicans' planned cuts.
Some of these cuts might be good to make, but some are harmful, to the nation and to the poor. None of them would not be necessary if not for the Bush largesse to the the rich.
This progressive group suggests an alternative way to bring the budget into balance.
Senator Frist abused his "blind trust" by obtaining information about what stocks it owns. Frist disregards the facts and claims that the abuses did not occur.
In Baghdad, a few months ago, people were saying that a man was arrested by the Bush forces, after he said he had seen them plant a bomb in the street, or at least notice it and not remove it.
This also talks about the effects of the Bush regime policy to play on Islam to humiliate prisoners. As an Atheist, who believes in toleration of religion but sees little good in most religions, I don't feel great personal sympathy for people who are offended by this. But it seems that the policy's result is to build support for the resistance.
Bliar reversed course on climate change, giving his support to Bush. (This was the one major issue on which Bliar did not publicly support Bush already.) Bush must have pulled on his leash.
It is further proof that Bliar's claim to be quietly influencing Bush is fabricated.
An Iraqi cleric says al-Zarqawi died long ago--and that the supposed messages from him are fakes.
There are reports that Iraqi civilians found that the Bush forces had planted bombs in their cars.
These could be false reports. The stories of bombs planted by the Bush forces do not give the names of the people, and I don't know who the writer is. People do fake their deaths, and Zarqawi might have done so; but it doesn't stand to reason that he would fake his death and then continue making press releases.
If this is true, it adds up to a scheme by the Bush forces to incite civil war between the Iraqi Shi'ites and Sunnis. And that makes it plausible, because so much else they are doing would seem to be headed in that direction too.
The government of Botswana arrested all the leaders of the First People of the Kalahari, which is resisting forced relocation. It has banned journalists and harrassed human rights investigators.
I don't know the background of the issue, and I would like to know of the reasons for the relocation. The area is labeled as a game reserve; perhaps this is being done to protect endangered species from extinction. Or maybe not. But even if there is a good reason to turn the area into a park and make people move out, it can be done without trampling basic human rights.
Demand for palm oil is pushing the extinction of orangutans through the destruction of rainforests in Sumatra and Borneo.
Putting it all together on Bush, hurricanes, and global warming.
Will Bush now have to admit that his burn-it-all-now oil policies have caused disaster?
I doubt it. I think he will continue lying and denying till the end.
The FBI keeps trying to push for more power to collect information secretly without search warrants. In the House of Representatives it got most of what it wanted.
Thai Muslims found undercover soldiers near the site of a killing, and tied them up, accusing them of being part of the government's death squads. Then some masked men killed the soldiers.
Writer Sharon Olds rejected an invitation to the National Book Festival because it would have meant "breaking bread" with Laura Bush.
Bliar announced a plan to remove the UK's troops from the Bush forces in Iraq--based on the unlikely assumption that resistance activity will quiet down next year.
In other words, this is more of the pretense that the Bush forces are winning. If that does not happen, I wonder if Bliar will simply lie and say it did happen. Well, that would be better than not withdrawing the troops.
The Center for Strategic International Studies disputes the Bush claim that the resistance in Iraq consists of foreigners. They say foreigners make up about 4 to 10 percent. Which means at least 90% are Iraqis. The foreigners trying to impose their will on Iraq are those in the Bush forces.
When Bush speaks of Iraqi forces, he means the Kurds and some Shi'ites that he uses to fight the Sunnis.
The Bush regime banned Robert Fisk from visiting the US to give speeches. This is not a new practice; the US government has banned foreigners for decades from giving speeches to express views it does not like.
In the 80s, noted author Farley Mowat was banned from doing a book tour in the US, which was great for sales of his book. He demanded a formal apology, and wrote a book about it. ISTR that Bertrand Russell was once thus barred.
Bush is using Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to abolish laws that protect working people from abuse by business.
Former General Janis Karpinski says the torture at Abu Ghraib prison was ordered by higher-ups who have been shielded.
US troops practiced torture in Afghanistan too, and there too, the footsoldiers are being prosecuted while the people who gave the orders are being let alone.
A British citizen was convicted of the crime of "possessing items of use to terrorists".
Assuming the description of those items is accurate (which may or may not be the case), I would say they provide a basis to suspect that he might have been planning some sort of violence (which might or might not be terrorism, depending on details). His explanations could have been lies.
However, what provides enough basis for suspicion is not enough grounds to conclude someone is guilty. When laws are twisted so that presenting a basis for suspicion is defined as a crime, that is merely a disguise for disregarding the right to a fair trial. A trial which only proves there was grounds to suspect you is a meaningless trial, and governments which possess this arbitrary power are more dangerous than any non-state-supported terrorist.
What an honest and legitimate government would do was start watching him carefully. Specific grounds for suspicion are enough basis to do that, and if he had later begun to plan an actual act of violence, they would probably have been able to stop it. And then they could convict him and his accomplices of a real crime in a fair trial.
Some brave and humane Israeli soldiers talk about how their commanders gave orders to shoot unarmed Palestian civilians--often purely arbitrarily.
After a half-hearted investigation, the Israeli police decided not to prosecute the policemen that killed 13 unarmed Arab protestors. However, some of the judges on a panel which also studied the events disagreed with this conclusion.
Prisoners in a New Orleans jail were left locked in cells for days without food or water to drink, as sea water rose around them. Some 500 are missing--whether escaped or drowned, nobody knows.
A report says that a supposed passenger on one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 was arrested, alive, in Europe.
I am not sure whether to believe this. I am skeptical of claims that something other than a jetliner hit the Pentagon. I am also puzzled by why, if Ms Olsen was part of the 9/11 conspiracy, US agents would participate in arresting her now. Wouldn't they either help her get away, or kill her, so as to maintain the secret?
But this report might be true, and if it is, it's important.
People have notice a couple of other discrepancies in this story: there is no Austrian-Polish border, and the Lira is obsolete, having been replaced by the Euro. (I don't know what "international Lira" would mean; I took that to be an unclear reference to some sort of financial instrument I don't know about.) Another message claims it was really the Polish-German border. Is there still a border control at that border? I don't remember.
It could be that the writer was careless simply got these details wrong. But it does reduce the credibility of the story.
China admits that some personnel imposes forced sterilizations and abortions, but says this is not official policy.
I support China's one-child policy; I do not believe that people have an unquestionable right to have as many children as they wish. To have a child, presuming that we won't just let it starve, means imposing a substantial added burden on the world's future, and each extra child imposes a bigger burden that an extra house or car. We don't guarantee everyone the right to as many houses or cars as he or she might desire, and we cannot do this with children either.
After the Bush forces knocked down a jail to release two soldiers arrested by the Iraqi government, Iraqis see confirmation that their government is a puppet.
Democracy Now! Interview with Hugo Chavez.
In Basra, Bush forces soldiers masquerading as Arabs shot an Iraqi policeman and were arrested. The Bush forces sent tanks to knock down the walls of the jail, and 150 prisoners ran away. The city then rioted.
The Bliar regime says the rioting was actually prepared by Al Sadr's militia.
It might be true, but if true, it does not make the situation any better.
North Korea tentatively agreed to drop its nuclear weapons program. Then a day later it changed the conditions, which may break the deal.
The Bliar regime censored publication of an official's diary, not for the sake of the national interest, but only because what he intended to say made Bliar look bad.
Hurricane Rita may or may not clober the same areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. But if it doesn't, another storm will, and another, and another. These low-lying coastal areas will become increasingly vulnerable in future decades, as sea levels rise and storms become more powerful. A rise of two feet could happen in this century.
We should take the hint from these hurricanes, and cut our losses, by not building any more in those areas. When something is destroyed, replace it further inland.
A day at the polls, Afghanistan-style. Some Afghans are so eager to vote that they will walk for hours. But women cannot make the long trek, so they cannot vote. And some of the candidates expected to win are warlords.
Thousands of people in the UK face forced "treatment" for mental illness, and the legal protections against this are (as always under Blair) inadequate.
The newest form of nonviolent protest in Bil'in: a recital by an Israeli pianist--on a truck.
For a man who predicted a Soviet-style collapse of the US, the events of New Orleans are confirmation.
What I have seen over and over is a government that fusses about obedience to regulations--various different kinds of regulations--while ignoring the fact that people are dying. Whether it is blocking foreign rescuers because it can't decide what visa to give them, or burning food with British meat because of a remote chance of BSE (just like US meat), or not letting the Red Cross bring supplies to refugees because "it's too dangerous to let anyone in", the pattern is the same.
Publicly, some oil companies pretend there is no global warming, but privately, they study reports on how climate change will affect their own operations.
Only 7% of Brazil's Atlantic Forest is left. Lula has yet to sign a weak law to begin to protect it.
The Bush-puppet Iraqi Ministry of Defense was swindled of a billion dollars, which were supposed to be spent to buy arms.
The contracting was done in such a fishy way that any honest procurement official would smell a rat. But Bush won't stand for honest procurement officials, as the example of Bunnatine Greenhouse shows--so events like this are no surprise.
NATO standard rations sent by the UK to feed Hurricane refugees are to be burned--because of exaggerated concern for BSE. This makes no sense, because it is already too late to keep BSE out of the US.
According to an article I read in Spanish, 120 peasants have occupied the Ministry of Energy in Ecuador, demanding an end to the power of the oil companies and no trade treaty with the US.
Dubya's War on Integrity continues as the EPA makes rules for pesticide testing--full of loopholes that take advantage of the weak and poor.
And to the Fish and Wildlife Service, where his nominee has already prosecuted this war in one part of the country.
Ending the prohibition of marijuana would save the US some 7 billion dollars a year. Taxing it like the more dangerous tobacco would bring in some 6 billion in revenue
Marijuana use among teenagers has decreased greatly since the 1990s, and this includes the states that have passed laws liberalizing marijuana use.
Journalists under Attack in Louisiana and Iraq.
Details of killings of journalists by the Bush forces.
President Chavez of Venezuela says that he has a copy of a secret US invasion plan.
"Loyalists" in Ulster have resumed the violence which the IRA has ended.
Cluster bombs are on sale at a giant arms dealers' convention in the UK, contrary to the event's stated policy. And when told the policy is being ignored, the even organizers try to excuse the violators.
Global warming has passed a tipping point--as the arctic ice melts, it warms the arctic more. This may be irreversible, and could lead to disaster for the whole world.
The Bush forces attacked the Iraqi town of Tel Afar using Kurdish "Iraqi" troops.
An Iraqi journalist's remotex report on the attack.
Human Rights Watch reports that the Uzbek government is torturing the witnesses to its massacre of protestors to make them admit to being radical islamists--which they are not.
Bush denies aid to countries that won't buy expensive US anti-AIDS medicine. Meanwhile, the WTO is cutting off the supply of cheap AIDS medicine from India. This makes the WTO a mass murderer.
I think Malawi (or various other countries) could legitimately arrest the WTO's leaders in any country where they can be found, and put them on trial for murder. Along with Bush, of course.
Blair plans to deport a Zimbabwean to certain death. If Mugabe doesn't kill him (he was driven out by threats), AIDS will.
A lawsuit in Washington State, to investigate apparent manipulation of the last election, calls for the court to reject the trade secrecy of voting machines because the conduct of elections cannot be secret.
"I don't want to kill anyone else--just me." The irrational and unjust "control orders" in the UK, permanent denial of basic human rights without a trial, drove one man to attempt suicide already.
The Blair regime says hundreds of people will be treated this way, and that it extends to citizens as well as foreigners. The foreigners at least theoretically have another country they could go to, though some of them face torture if they return "home". The British citizens have nowhere to go unless granted political asylum.
The historic and touristic parts of New Orleans were not flooded, and some people fear that they will be operated as a kind of theme park.
That's not really feasible, since the thousands of people who work there would need places to live, too; they would form a substantial city, meaning that much of the city would have to be rebuilt. But it could be rebuilt on high ground, so as not to ask for a repeat of the disaster a short time from now.
An Israeli general who retaliated for an attack by bulldozing the homes of civilians was going to be arrested in England and tried for war crimes. But he was tipped off somehow and left in a hurry.
My understanding is that retaliating against innocent civilians violates the treaties for the conduct of occupying armies.
Muslims are bringing the brutality of "honor killings" to Germany.
I wonder if some of the nonviolent forms of sexual humilliation practiced in Abu Ghraib on people never charged with a crime could be effective as punishments for convicted murderers. Maybe these macho men would hesitate to murder their sisters if they knew it would mean being paraded publicly in handcuffs wearing women's underwear.
