|
|
|
|
Information Clearing House Digest 6-10 September 2005 |
|
|
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 === To read this newsletter online www.informationclearinghouse.info/ or snipurl.com/ayzc RSS FEED www.feedfire.com/site/rss.cgi?ChanContentId=001864 === Charge Him or Release Him Jose Padilla : U.S. Citizen Imprisoned Without Trial or Charges for 3 Years and 125 Days === Jose Padilla and The Death of Personal Liberty Americans seem unaware of the great loss we’ve all suffered by the Padilla verdict. by Mike Whitney The verdict confers absolute authority on the President to incarcerate American citizens without charge and without any legal means for the accused to challenge the terms of his detention. It is the end of “inalienable rights”, the end of The Bill of Rights, and the end of any meaningful notion of personal liberty. === By ALEXANDRA OLSON The U.S. military is tube-feeding more than a dozen of the 89 terror suspects on hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, a spokesman said Friday. === President signs executive order allowing contractors to pay below prevailing wage in affected areas. By Reuters In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused “a national emergency” that permits him to take such action under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in ravaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. === ARMED police have begun to handcuff hurricane survivors who refuse to leave their homes in New Orleans. === Ghosts with dirty faces stagger about in bare feet and floating, rolling cadavers snag on the upturned roots of pecan trees. === The military will bar journalists and photographers from documenting the recovery of bodies left littering New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, the army general in charge said today. === The fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history. === We will not stand idly by while this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our homes with newly built mansions and condos in a gentrified New Orleans.” === Raw political power will be used to block any independent investigation. === A Halliburton Co. subsidiary that has come under fire for its reconstruction work in Iraq has begun tapping a $500 million Navy contract to do emergency repairs at Gulf Coast naval and Marine facilities that were battered by Hurricane Katrina. === Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration’s first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. === Insurers are potentially facing billions of dollars in losses from Hurricane Katrina claims, and battle lines have begun forming as carriers argue they aren’t responsible for flooding excluded from standard homeowners policies. === A German military plane carrying 15 tons of military rations for survivors of Hurricane Katrina was sent back by U.S. authorities, officials said Saturday. === After a frantic week, the clinic for hurricane victims is just about ready. But the medical staff is gone. === Like the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, whose fourth anniversary is this weekend, Hurricane Katrina is an event whose consequences will extend far beyond the physical, into the very mind of America. === How about a “disengagement plan” for New Orleans’ residents and those made homeless by Katrina? How about diverting the American/Israeli compensation package to Americans? After all, isn’t it questionable at best that our tax dollars support “Squatters”? === Zionism’s Useful Idiots : We’re useful idiots for the Zionists in Washington and Tel Aviv. Useful because our hard-earned paychecks can be harvested to pay for war and mass murder in the Middle East, idiots because we don’t do anything about it. === Tel Aviv muddled a clear intelligence picture by submitting to Washington a Mossad estimate that claimed the Israeli military was badly outgunned by a Soviet-backed Arab war machine. The Israelis may have been trying to exploit the special relationship they had with James Angleton, chief of CIA counterintelligence. === Patrick Cockburn: A fatal detachment from reality… : How Bush’s failures in Iraq and New Orleans are linked === Iraqi defense minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi said Saturday that 141 “insurgents” had been killed and 197 others captured by Iraqi and US forces over the past two days in a major offensive to rid the northern town of Tal Afar of terrorists. === Residents of the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar has sent out an SOS to the international community to interfere with the US occupation authorities to stop their continuing bombing of their devastated city, revealing a terrible humanitarian situation. === Here we see 200,000 “liberated‰ Iraqis thrown out of their home without any control over their destiny as to where they can go, and here comes the assault ˜ a action replay of Fallujah. According to the reports the operation would be extended to Ramadi, Qaem, Rawa and Samara as well. === A car bomb killed four and injured 11 on Friday evening when it blew up outside a police station in a small town south of the capital, local police said === Police found the bodies of 18 men who had been handcuffed and shot to death in Iskandariya, a town where dozens of killings have been reported in escalating vengeance killings by Shiite Muslim and Sunni Aram “death squads.” === Seven Iraqis, including a mayor, a policeman and an army officer were killed and five others wounded in several rebel attacks north of the Iraqi capital. === The specific allegations have not been disclosed, but investigators have reviewed accusations that soldiers used an electric stun gun to abuse handcuffed and blindfolded detainees === Employees of private security firms are immune from prosecution in Iraq, under an order adopted into law last year by Iraq’s interim government. The most severe punishment that can be applied to them is revocation of their license and dismissal from their job === Army officials said the failure to notify the family of the true cause of Ballard’s death was an oversight. The military sometimes incorrectly categorizes the cause of war deaths. === Dr Mahathir said US and UK pilots in Iraq were “murderers” and compared the war to rocket attacks on Palestinians. === The Director-General of MI5, allowed a confidential speech that she had given to Dutch intelligence officers to be published on the agency‚s website yesterday. She gave a warning that an erosion of civil liberties might be necessary to stop more British citizens from being killed by terrorists. === Would losing some civil liberties be a price worth paying for greater security? === The videotape of the suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan has switched the focus of the London bombings away from the establishment view of brainwashed, murderous individuals and highlighted a starker political reality. === The nation’s only uncensored compilation of daily television news reports from more than 15 countries in the Middle East. QuickTime Video. === US-led and Afghan troops killed some 30 suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan as the defence minister survived an assassination attempt === The Taliban are buying more sophisticated arms, and Russian and Chinese-made surface-to-air missiles in particular are flowing into Afghanistan in increasing numbers === CIA Electoral Interventions, and Nicaragua as a Model for Venezuela === Please sound the alarm. We all know that UN soldiers arrested Father Jean Juste. We know that the Haitian police are under the supervision of the UN soldiers in Haiti. === The physician who lost his home in Katrina and told Cheney “to *uck off” === U.S. citizenship will not protect individuals from being deprived of their liberty if the Administration decides they are a threat to U.S. national security. === Media coverage of Hurricane Katrina all but drowned out what may well be one of the most consequential court decisions in American history ˆ and one that should focus even more attention on the ideological composition of the Supreme Court. === America was not established as a true democracy. The original framers of the constitution desired that only White men who owned property were to have a voice in how the government was run, including the right to vote. === A federal judge lifted a gag order Friday that shielded the identity of librarians who received an FBI demand for records about library patrons under the Patriot Act. === Michael Brown, the embattled head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, approved payments in excess of $31 million in taxpayer money to thousands of Florida residents who were unaffected by Hurricane Frances and three other hurricanes last year in an effort to help President Bush win a majority of votes in that state === I need your help to offset the costs associated with site hosting and bandwidth usage. If you find this site informative please help by clicking here === Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 === To read this newsletter online www.informationclearinghouse.info/ or snipurl.com/ayzc To Unsubscribe see information at the base of this newsletter RSS FEED www.feedfire.com/site/rss.cgi?ChanContentId=001864 === Charge Him or Release Him Jose Padilla : U.S. Citizen Imprisoned Without Trial or Charges for 3 Years and 124 Days === Court upholds detention without trial for U.S. Citizens By Reuters A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that U.S. President George W. Bush has the power to detain Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who has been held for more than three years as a suspected enemy combatant without any charges being brought against him. === By Spencer S. Hsu FEMA’s top three leaders — Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler — arrived with ties to President Bush’s 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative. === Hurricane Victims Get a Taste of Life in Occupied Iraq By Ted Rall Taps run dry. Food rots when the power goes out. Toilets overflow with waste. Looters strip homes, businesses and public buildings. Armed bandits run wild in the streets. Fires rage out of control. Terrified policemen abandon their posts. Flies buzz over bloated corpses. People wave signs at passing helicopters. “Please help us,” they read. === There are deeper explanations for the New Orleans catastrophe than anyone has dared suggest. The roots lie in America’s deluded self-image By Andrew Stephen While Vice-President Cheney was fly-fishing in Wyoming. Condoleezza Rice, next in charge, was shopping for shoes at Ferragamo’s and watching Spamalot on Broadway and catching the US Open in New York; while Andy Card, the White House chief of staff, who is supposed to keep it all together, was taking in the sea breeze with much of the rest of the Bush crowd in Maine. === Move follows controversy over Brown‚s qualifications, agency‚s response === A TIME investigation reveals discrepancies in the FEMA chief’s official biographies === What kind of country leaves the bodies of its citizens to rot in the streets? -WARNING – Graphic Images === Journalists covering New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina report that militarization in and around the city has hindered their work and threatened their physical safety. We hear from two journalists who were reporting in New Orleans recently. Video and transcript. This is a must watch === When a lot of people see a lot of dead bodies, politicians begin thinking of damage control. === === It is thought, that if the American people cannot see death, they will come to believe it does not exist. === === This is a failure of moral and political philosophy — a deadly failure. It is a truth that needs to be told, starting now — over and over. There can be no delay. === The US confirmed on Thursday that it is braced for the discovery of more than 10,000 bodies following Hurricane Katrina. === We were repeatedly told that a threat to our security loomed on the horizon, a threat so grave we as a people needed to cede our liberties to a benevolent federal authority that guaranteed the security of a nation we now called our “homeland.‰ === “On August 15, just two weeks before Katrina slammed into the U.S., the Pentagon boasted of spending $6.4-billion — so far — on 2,705 Corps of Engineers construction projects in Iraq, all but 200 of them started since June 2004.” === President George W. Bush will not reverse his brutal policies; his Congressional rubber-stamps will not revolt against the White House; the Democrats will not suddenly grow a spine. There will be no real change, and the bitter corrosion of injustice, indifference and inhumanity that is consuming American society will go on as before. === The mighty colossus that aspired to stand astride the world has been unmasked as a feeble old man unable to take care of his own people. === The Republican Leadership in the House of Representatives limited floor consideration of the $52 billion Katrina relief bill proposed by President Bush and voted to reject any Democratic efforts to amend the bill to include a wider array of relief measures === Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here. === In the new New Orleans, there are no constitutional rights. Not only are soldiers allowed to break down doors (as they do in Iraq) in violation of the Fourth Amendment and even “shoot to kill‰ if they believe they are threatened (as soldiers in Iraq “shoot to kill‰ grandmothers and kids at Israeli-styled checkpoints), now the Second Amendment no longer exists. === Jesse Jackson was right when he said “refugees” was not the appropriate word for the poor souls dislocated due to Katrina. But he was wrong about why it is not appropriate. It’s not appropriate because they are detainees, not refugees === Under globalization, Baghdad and New Orleans really are interchangeable. It‚s not just the American worker, but the American citizen, who is being brought down to the same level as a citizen of the Third World. Apparently, human rights are only for those with the money to buy them — and the price is going up, up, up, right along with oil. === Three federal appellate judges yesterday expressed doubts about the government’s assertion that hundreds of foreign nationals imprisoned indefinitely at a U.S. military base in Cuba have no right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. === === We may just have witnessed the day of which we will say in ten or twenty years, “That was the day, Aug. 31, 2005, the day America began to visibly collapse.” === The United States turned Thursday to its allies in NATO, to help bring in desperately needed food and supplies for the hundreds of thousands of Americans left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. === === Israeli Rabbi: Hurricane punishment for pullout : “There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, because there isn‚t enough Torah study∑ black people reside there (in New Orleans). Blacks will study the Torah? (God said) let‚s bring a tsunami and drown them.‰ === You don‚t need to look at a map, though, to guess who will profit from these deaths. === Iraqis killed in spate of attacks : Four Iraqis, including two policemen, have been killed and five others wounded in separate rebel attacks, including a roadside bomb that targeted a US convoy in Baghdad, security sources say. === Gunmen attacked a police patrol in western Baghdad Friday, killing a policeman and wounding three others, the police said. === A suicide car bomb blew up near a US military convoy in southern Baghdad on Friday, killing an Iraqi woman and wounding three people, police said. === US forces have carried out bombing raids overnight on Thursday on the town, near Syria. === In a press statement, the company said it had not been paid for its services since March and therefore decided cease operations as of 06:00 am (0200 GMT) on Friday, effectively closing the airport to commercial traffic. === Powell calls pre-Iraq U.N. speech a ‘blot’ on his record: “I’m the one who presented it to the world, and (it) will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It is painful now,” Powell said in an interview with Barbara Walters on ABC-News. === US and British pilots whose bombs killed Iraqi civilians were murderers, and actions taken by those two countries during the invasion and occupation of Iraq amounted to terrorism, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has said. === More than 200 detainees in Guantánamo Bay are in their fifth week of a hunger strike, the Guardian has been told. === British Home Secretary: Europe must trade civil liberties for security: Charles Clarke has warned that European citizens will have to accept that civil liberties may have to be bartered away in exchange for protection from terrorists and organised criminals. === Australian police will be able to use electronic tracking devices to keep tabs on terror suspects, and detain people for up to 48 hours without charge under new security laws unveiled on Thursday. === From Dunkin’ Donuts shops and florists to motorcycle dealers and chiropractors, businesses nationwide said they were unaware their banks had lent them money from the low-interest, government-guaranteed Sept. 11 loan program. === Women’s rights activists are to march in 11 cities in Canada and Europe against plans to allow Sharia law tribunals in the province of Ontario. === Video: “The Panama Deception” : This film shows how the U.S. attacked Panama and killed 3 or 4 thousand people in an invasion that the rest of the world was against. (Sound familiar?) === Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 === To read this newsletter online www.informationclearinghouse.info/ or snipurl.com/ayzc RSS FEED www.feedfire.com/site/rss.cgi?ChanContentId=001864 === Charge Him or Release Him Jose Padilla : U.S. Citizen Imprisoned Without Trial or Charges for 3 Years and 123 Days === Listening to Your Neighbors Die: “I heard her die,” Williams said. “She cried for two nights, ‘Help. Someone help me please!’ Then the last time I heard her call it turned into a gurgle. That was her last cry. === “Go *uck Yourself, Mr. Cheney!” Vice President Dick Cheney, in Gulfport, Mississippi on a tour of the Katrina hurricane zone, was told to “go *uck yourself, Mr. Cheney” twice on live television Click here to watch === This is a must read report By Giles Whittell IF THERE is a smoking gun in the Gulf Coast wreckage, it is the hurricane warning issued by the New Orleans office of the US National Weather Service soon after 10am on August 28, the eve of Katrina‚s arrival. === By John Perkins It is time, my fellow Americans, to listen to the words of our Founding Fathers. Profiteering without representation must go. The destruction of our world, for the short-term benefit of a new type of royalty, is unacceptable. === By Mike Whitney The orders are clear: “Empty the city, Cut off communications between the citizenry, and Protect private property.” The result is a massive ethnic cleansing operation that will displace tens of thousands of poor, black residents and pave the way for Halliburton and other major Bush contributors to rebuild the city at taxpayer expense. This is the clearest illustration of class-based warfare we have seen to date, but we expect more will follow. === Campaign pros get top jobs By Kenneth R. Bazinet The three top jobs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bush went to political cronies with no apparent experience coping with catastrophes. === By Paul Vallely Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global Inequality. It reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years – and is now the same as Malaysia. America’s black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday. === A Louisiana congressman says more than 100 people died at a warehouse along a New Orleans dock. Congressman Charlie Melancon (muh-LAWN’-suhn) says they died as they waited for rescuers to take them to safety. === St. Bernard Parish officials say that 32 of the home’s roughly 60 residents died on Aug. 29, more than a week ago. === Four people died of a water-borne illness they contracted from dirty water following Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said === A Canadian search-and-rescue team reached a flooded New Orleans suburb to help save trapped residents five days before the U.S. military, a Louisiana state senator said on Wednesday. === FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid – FEMA: “First Responders Urged Not To Respond” === Reversing an eight-year crusade to rid the now-embattled Federal Emegency Management Agency of political patronage, a newly elected George W. Bush in 2001 named two key players in his Florida recount fight to important FEMA posts. === FEMA officials announced that families in the greatest need of federal assistance are eligible for debit cards worth as much as $2,000. === “Doling out food to the hungry crowds overflowing Houston‚s Astrodome, the National Guard has engaged in ad hoc recruiting in recent days === Barbara Bush was making “a personal observation” when she said poor people at a relocation center in Houston were faring better than before Hurricane Katrina struck, President Bush’s spokesman said Wednesday. === The New Orleans “welfare riff-raff” have “hit the jackpot” and are going to get new houses and cars and “we” will all have to pay for “their” windfall. Now “they” are going to be bringing their “crime” to decent cities. === Hurricane Katrina will be by far the costliest disaster in United States history, requiring $150bn (Ł81bn) to $200bn in relief, clean-up and reconstruction spending by the federal government, and causing the short-term loss of some 400,000 jobs. === Civilized societies protect the weak and vulnerable. When help did come to those stranded in New Orleans, the sick and the elderly were the last to get out. === The firefighters, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers. They have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: === Iraqi police found the bodies of 16 more civilians south of Baghdad. All had been shot to death. === === Two Iraqi civilians were killed and five others, including two mutlinational forces troops, were injured in two separate booby-trapped car blasts in Baghdad on Thursday === Two Iraqi soldiers guarding oil industry assets were killed and another nine wounded by a roadside bomb in al-Jazeera area, west of Tikrit === The top United Nations envoy in Iraq today voiced serious concern over the human rights situation in the war-torn country === THE United Nations has refused to start printing Iraq’s draft constitution, yet again delaying efforts to get millions of copies to voters before a referendum on October 15. === 52 per cent of respondents believe things for U.S. troops are going worse than expected. === Cindy Sheehan stops at Hastert’s office in Batavia === Bring Them Home Now Tour: === Who has killed more? – insurgents and suicide terrorists, or the armies of America and Britain? Well, any rational appraisal of the unlawfully killed in Iraq and Afghanistan will quickly show that Britain and America have killed far, far more people than any gang of terrorists. === An Interview with Howard Zinn === I need your help to offset the costs associated with site hosting and bandwidth usage. If you find this site informative please help by clicking here === Transmission of the anthrax, constitutes a breach of international law by the US, and that it is now the British government‚s responsibility to report the matter to the United Nations Security Council. === The US Defense Department failed to secure sources of radiological material in Iraq for six months after the US invasion in 2003, during which period some were looted or scattered, a congressional watchdog said. === While US Navy ships were patrolling the Gulf in February 2003, making a show of boarding and searching leaky dhows and small ships, they turned a blind eye to tankers carrying $54 million of Iraqi oil under the scheme on Jordan’s behalf, the report said. === Six policemen and two militants were killed after suspected Taleban rebels attacked a security checkpoint in central Afghanistan, officials say. === === America is second to last in aid as a portion of its national income, with Italy bringing up the rear. Japan was third from the bottom. Aid per capita from donors ranges from more than $200 in Sweden to $51 in the United States and $37 in Italy. === U.S. oil and natural gas supplies would be devastated if another strong storm hits while the Gulf of Mexico is recovering from Hurricane Katrina, energy analysts said on Wednesday. === The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) today exposed internal oil company memos that show how the industry intentionally reduced domestic refining capacity to drive up profits === Attorney General Tom Reilly today certified a ballot initiative to require the governor to withhold further National Guard deployment to Iraq and to use his office to bring about the immediate recall of all Massachusetts National Guard troops current in Iraq. === Egypt Counts Votes Amid Massive Fraud Reports: Opposition candidates and independent monitors reported massive fraud in Egypt’s first multi-candidate presidential elections === === The pipeline, which was to be built from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, will “ensure German energy supplies from Russia over decades ahead,” said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. === Five admirals, Carlyle Group and Rand take over === Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 === To read this newsletter online www.informationclearinghouse.info/ or snipurl.com/ayzc RSS FEED www.feedfire.com/site/rss.cgi?ChanContentId=001864 === Charge Him or Release Him Jose Padilla : U.S. Citizen Imprisoned Without Trial or Charges for 3 Years and 122 Days === Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center By Brian Thevenot “Don’t step in that blood – it’s contaminated,” he said. “That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he’s an old man.” Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly man. That’s a kid,” he said. “There’s another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut.” === by Robert Scheer Instead of the much-celebrated American can-do machine that promises to bring freedom and prosperity to less fortunate people abroad, we have seen a callous official incompetence that puts even Third World rulers to shame. === Doctors for Iraq warns of medical and humanitarian crisis By Doctors For Iraq Doctors for Iraq is deeply concerned at the fate of hundreds of civilians trying to flee the sieged town of Tallafa, 80 km from Mousel City. Thousands of residents from the town have been told to leave the area by US/ Iraqi forces who have been attacking the area for the past three- four days. === The northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar was on edge yesterday after at least seven civilians were killed during an operation by Iraqi and US troops against insurgents there. === Insurgents killed four Iraqi soldiers and two civilians and injured seven others when they attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in the town of Khalis === A roadside bomb killed four American security guards traveling in a convoy Wednesday in the southern city of Basra === A car bomb detonated Wednesday in southern Baghdad, killing three civilians and wounding another, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua. === Maj. Gen. Hadi Hassan Omran, an Iraqi Defense Ministry director general, was shot to death as he drove through Baghdad’s southern Dora neighborhood === Iraqi MPs on Tuesday debated sweeping anti-terror legislation that would make even crimes such as vandalism subject to the death penalty in a bid to quell the raging insurgency. === Present-day US fears about an Iranian-dominated super-state embracing southern Iraq and the Gulf have a basis in historical fact === More than two months after authorities cleared him of suspicion in a mortar attack on a United States base in Baghdad, an Iraqi man was released Tuesday from military custody, just days before government lawyers were due in court to answer questions about his captivity. === Two separate Gallup polls, detailed today in the organization’s weekly report, show that Americans favor withdrawing some or all U.S. troops from Iraq. === Mayor Ray Nagin today issued an emergency proclamation calling on all law officers and military members to begin using force, if necessary to compel all civilians to leave New Orleans. === The first rule of the social fabric – that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable – was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield. No wonder confidence in civic institutions is plummeting. === In newspapers across the world, commentators believe Hurricane Katrina marks a profound change in the way the US is perceived at home and abroad. Some speak of the American “myth” being shattered by the poverty and racial divisions which they say the disaster has revealed. === The U.S. government agency leading the rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from the flooded New Orleans area. === – Warning – Disturbing images === The devastation of Hurricane Katrina has created a vast toxic soup that stretches across south-eastern Louisiana and Mississippi, and portends the arrival of an environmental disaster to rival the awe-inspiring destruction of property and human life over the past week. === Washington has asked the 25-member EU for aid in the form of blankets, medicines, water and half a million food rations, the European Commission said in a statement. === A Swedish plane laden with aid was waiting to take off but had not got U.S. approval to enter the United States. === Bush rejects Chávez aid : An offer of aid from the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, which included two mobile hospital units, 120 rescue and first aid experts and 50 tonnes of food, has been rejected, according to the civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson. === Iran has offered to send 20 million barrels of crude oil to the US to help with the consequences of Hurricane Katrina. === Carrying water treatment plants, mobile kitchens and supplies to feed victims of Hurricane Katrina, the army convoy bound for Houston will be the first Mexican military unit to operate on U.S. soil since 1846. === a message from Michael Moore === The wretchedness coming across our television screens from Louisiana has illuminated the way children sometimes pay with their lives, even in America, for being born to poor families. It has also underscored the Bush administration’s ongoing reluctance or ineptitude in helping the poorest Americans. === The official relief effort was callous, inept and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost. === Ten buses sent from Washington to help evacuate victims of Hurricane Katrina returned nearly empty on Wednesday after volunteers could find only one person willing to come to the U.S. capital, a city official said. === Critics charge Bush political patronage, focus on terror hurt FEMA’s effectiveness ==== Let the corporations handle your old-age pension. Let the corporations decide how much protection we and our environment need from their toxics. Let the corporations decide what we’re paid. Let the corporations decide what doctor we can see, when, and for what purpose. === Will we finally connect the global dots of imperialist terror from Palestine to Haiti, from Biloxi to Baghdad, from Africa to the Gulf Coast? If not, what will it take or will we continue being complicit “good germans”? === This web site represents the effort of one person. I need your help to offset the costs associated with site hosting and bandwidth usage. If you find this site informative please help by clicking here === The Republican party engineered and carried out a bloody war against Americans that revolutionized the basis on which our liberty had been built. They maintained a cold war for another decade, governing by force and fraud, unprecedented in American history. === Republican Party Brown Shirts: “The Wide-Awakes”: The organization was known for virulent anti-Catholicism, secretive rituals, and a military-style organization complete with “officers” and units. === Due to careful post-White House planning, Feith and his band of cronies will enjoy financial benefits for life, just so long as their never-ending war policies are carried on by their successor. === Earlier, three police officials were killed in an attack in the area. === “The suicide bombers were to carry out the attack on the US troops but it went off early,” === Israeli army killed 5 unarmed Palestinians-watchdog: An Israeli rights watchdog accused Israeli soldiers on Wednesday of killing five unarmed Palestinians in a recent raid, and said the assassination of West Bank Arabs had become routine. === From a distance of 70 metres and through the sight of his machine gun, Assaf could tell that the Palestinian man was aged between 20 and 30, unarmed and trying to get away from an Israeli tank. But the details didn’t matter much, because Assaf’s orders were to “fire at anything that moved”. === An end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict depends in the first instance on a more determined international intervention to achieve accountability from Israel and to enforce a compliance with International Law. === Senators need to ask these pointed questions of John G. Roberts Jr. at the upcoming confirmation hearings. === “Given the available information, we do not believe there can be any doubt that the U.S. government has intervened to support the stock market. Yet virtually no one ever mentions government intervention publicly, preferring instead to pretend as if such activities have never taken place and never would. === Internet giant Yahoo has been accused of supplying information to China which led to the jailing of a journalist for “divulging state secrets”. === Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 === To read this newsletter online www.informationclearinghouse.info/ or snipurl.com/ayzc RSS FEED www.feedfire.com/site/rss.cgi?ChanContentId=001864 === Charge Him or Release Him Jose Padilla : U.S. Citizen Imprisoned Without Trial or Charges for 3 Years and 121 Days === The city where the dead are left lying on the streets In a makeshift grave on the streets of New Orleans lies the body of Vera Smith. By Andrew Buncombe in New Orleans However Vera Smith may have lived her life, one thing was certain. In death, she had no dignity. Killed in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, her body lay under a tarpaulin at the junction of Magazine Street and Jackson Avenue for five full days. Not her friends, her grieving husband, not her neighbours could persuade the authorities to take her corpse away. === Everybody should be concerned about what we are seeing unfold before our eyes. Look around you. Have you created the society you want for yourself and your children? Do you have the social support you need? Do you know where food and water would come from if a disaster would strike? === Bush and Third World America By Manuel Valenzuela Americans have been slapped in the face by Katrina, forced to confront the vulnerability of our character and the impotence of our wealth, seeing the incompetence of our highest leaders and the ineptitude of our sacred government. – How can America fail when it is the greatest nation on Earth? === You have to watch this video to fully understand, how little regard our government has for the welfare of its own citizens. Click here to view. Windows Media === Twelve people – including 11 civilians, an Iraqi soldier and three bombers – died in the Hiyt attacks. === Near the Iraqi town of Balad, the U.S military said. === The incident was followed by clashes with insurgents lasting an hour, in which three civilian bystanders were also killed. === Three U.S. troops have been killed in separate bombings in Iraq, the U.S. command said today === “I‚m deeply concerned at the fate of my relatives and other locals after the US-backed Iraqi troops isolated the city and prevented remaining residents from leaving.‰ === SEVEN British paratroops murdered an unarmed civilian in a “brutal and unprovoked‰ attack eleven days after the war in Iraq had been declared over, a court martial was told yesterday. === A British soldier who shot dead an Iraqi civilian at a checkpoint will not face any charges, the office of Attorney General has confirmed. === Zarqawi’s Forces Kill U.S.-Allied Iraqis And Impose Strict Law, Witnesses Say === “The talks have ended. We did not reach any agreement on making changes to the draft. It will be printed in the form it was read to the National Assembly last week,” Bahaa al Araji told Reuters. “No changes will be made.” === UN chief Kofi Annan says Iraq has become what he calls an even greater terrorist centre than Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, as attacks attributed to al-Qaida’s wing surges in Baghdad and the west of the country. === An Iraqi alternative to US occupation === “DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies,” Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security. === Exposed: Louisiana Governor Had Asked Bush To Declare Disaster On Aug, 28th. . pdf file === “Mayfield said the strength of the storm and the potential disaster it could bring were made clear during both the briefings and in formal advisories === Police officers had taken “souvenir” photographs of stranded people begging for help, he added. === The choreographed events I’ve seen here today shocked me === ‘’Here lies Vera,” says the epitaph in black spray paint. ‘’God help us.” === The former first lady toured the Astrodome Monday, and along the way she opined that many of the refugees from New Orleans were so poor to begin with that they ought to be pretty happy with their temporary digs in Houston. === Photos are beginning to come out of New Orleans. WARNING Graphic Images === There are people dying and (the US government are) not putting the boats in the water, I think that’s criminal negligence. I don’t think anybody ever anticipated the criminal negligence of the Bush administration in this situation.” === Bush announced today in Washington, according to the Wall Street Journal, that “he will personally lead an investigation into what went wrong with the response to Hurricane Katrina.” What the heck! Does he think we are all stupid? === What this tragedy has exposed is far more than the nature of the Bush regime, but the sick nature of the very “American Way of Life” of which they are all so self-righteously proud. Uncaring, class-divided, race-divided, prejudiced, exploitive, steal-from-the-poor-to-protect-the-rich focused, bureaucratic, and incompetent. === The Red Cross is appealing for people overseas to contribute money to its Hurricane Katrina Appeal. But why does the world’s richest nation need handouts? === U.S.President George Bush may have gone down in the American poll ratings because of his administrations lackadaisical approach and ineptitude in dealing with the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf States, but what has appalled most people, is Washington’s decision to approach Third World countries for aid. === Well, all I can say is if a terrorist blows up Chicago or a major earthquake decimates Los Angeles, make sure you have batteries in your flashlights and learn to drink sewage with a smile because the Bush administration is otherwise distracted, dismissive and disinterested === If you‚re not pissed off, you‚re not paying attention. Warning – Item contains language,which may offend some readers. === I need your help to offset the costs associated with site hosting and bandwidth usage. If you find this site informative please help by clicking here === You know you have been lied to. === Much of New Orleans has become the Atlantis from hell, a toxic sludge pool of a looted former city, filled with dead bodies, burning in places, threatened with diseases like cholera and typhus that haven’t visited the Big Easy since early in the last century === NPR has for quite a while, cornered the market on intellectual compassion. However as the charade of political duality in the media becomes more evident. They are further exposed as frauds, if not a fifth column for a neocon-corporate-media. === Israeli military prosecutors have opened criminal investigations following allegations by soldiers that they carried out illegal shoot-to-kill orders against unarmed Palestinians. === Israel has authorized construction of 117 homes in one of the West Bank’s largest settlements and approved preliminary plans for another 3,000 housing units there, officials said Tuesday. === She noted that President Bush has said Israel can expect to keep West Bank settlement blocs under any final accord with the Palestinians. === In the high-stakes nuclear poker game between Iran and the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany), Tehran has decided to call the EU’s bluff and turn the game around. === What Cuba Has Offered the People of the Gulf Coast === |
|
|
|