Web / Press / Offsite Media Updates: August 8th -August 15th

by paul c Tue Aug 10, 2004 01:14

Venezuelan Pollster’s Deceit Failed to Rob Chávez of His Base Among the Poor

posting this to highlight the referendum attempting to oust cahvez occurs on sunday 15th of august...


As the August 15 referendum on whether Hugo Chávez should continue as president approaches in Venezuela, anti-Chávez pollsters have begun reluctantly issuing polls showing Chávez in the lead..........

narconews.com

by Michael Hennigan - Finfacts Tue Aug 10, 2004 09:56 finfacts at finfacts dot ie 087 2474328

In 1979, the Carter Administration began covert assistance to opponents of the Soviet backed Afghan Government with the purpose of sucking the Soviet Union into a 'Vietnam style quagmire.' A quarter century later, Saudi Arabia has to contend with opposition from individuals who had been radicalised by their experience in Afghanistan.

Last week Saudi Arabia announced that municipal elections would be held in November. Are the current baby steps towards political reform sufficient to stave off radical change as Al Qaeda continues to seek ways to destabilise the country including targeting senior members of the Royal Family?

by redjade Tue Aug 10, 2004 11:46

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said on Monday he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force against Iraq even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found.

[....]

"My goal, my diplomacy, my statesmanship is to get our troops reduced in number and I believe if you do the statesmanship properly, I believe if you do the kind of alliance building that is available to us, that it's appropriate to have a goal of reducing the troops over that period of time," he said.


[....]


"Obviously, we'd have to see how events unfold," he added. "I intend to get more people involved in that effort and I'm convinced I can be more successful than President Bush in succeeding in doing that. It is an appropriate goal to have and I'm going to try to achieve it."

by pat c Tue Aug 10, 2004 11:59

Nipsa has been involved in strike action since December
More civil servants are going on strike in Northern Ireland as part of the public service union, Nipsa's, pay dispute.
Staff at the Belfast planning office have decided to take part in the 35 week-long industrial action.

It will mean planning applications for Belfast and the Greater Belfast area will be affected.

Last week, the union rejected a government offer of 4.65% over 16 months.

On Tuesday, employees at the planning office in Omagh will also join the strike affecting applications in county Tyrone.

by pat c Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:02

Firefighters are warning that the fire service is at crisis point
Firefighters in Northern Ireland are warning that the service is at crisis point after an all-out strike was narrowly averted at the weekend. It comes after a dispute at Lisburn fire station on Saturday.

The city's fire cover was provided by part time firefighters because the full time staff were attending an explosion in Derry.

Speaking on Monday, Jim Barbour from the Fire Brigades Union said they were unhappy at the way the firefighters were dismissed.

"Full time cover in Lisburn had to be replaced by retained firefighters on standby and those firefighters gave up their Saturday from about 0930 BST to 1830 BST," Mr Barbour told BBC Radio Ulster.

'Almost inevitable'

"They were a little upset at the way they were, to be quite blunt about it, dismissed.

"We believe that the Fire Service is a tinderbox and it is ready to go up."

by redjade Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:17

Clashes and Churches...

300+ dead in a matter of days in Najaf and Al Sadir City. Of course, they are all being called ‘insurgents’. The woman on tv wrapped in the abaya, lying sprawled in the middle of the street must have been one of them too. Several explosions rocked Baghdad today- some government employees were told not to go to work tomorrow.

So is this a part of the reconstruction effort promised to the Shi’a in the south of the country? Najaf is considered the holiest city in Iraq. It is visited by Shi’a from all over the world, and yet, during the last two days, it has seen a rain of bombs and shells from none other than the ‘saviors’ of the oppressed Shi’a- the Americans. So is this the ‘Sunni Triangle’ too? It’s déjà vu- corpses in the streets, people mourning their dead and dying and buildings up in flames. The images flash by on the television screen and it’s Falluja all over again. Twenty years from now who will be blamed for the mass graves being dug today?

We’re waiting again for some sort of condemnation. I, personally, never had faith in the American selected proxy government currently pretending to be in power- but for some reason, I keep thinking that any day now- any moment- one of the Puppets, Allawi for example, will make an appearance on television and condemn all the killing. One of them will get in front of a camera and announce his resignation or at the very least, his utter disgust, at the bombing, the burning and the killing of hundreds of Iraqis and call for an end to it… it’s a foolish hope, I know.

by redjade Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:29

Children in Bait Hanun can paint trees - but not climb them

An America Jew has made sure at least some Palestinian children will remember their land the way it was before its destruction by Israeli bulldozers.

Dr Susan Greene has repeatedly left the safety of San Francisco and travelled to the occupied territories - armed only with a paintbox.

She has become a leading member of the Break the Silence Mural Project - an arts group that promotes a greater awareness of the complexities of the conflict in Palestine.

"Although there is no real freedom of movement, friends got me to Bait Hanun where the local children and I painted a mural of orange trees," she told Aljazeera.net on Thursday.

Anyone familiar with Bait Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, knows the town was once famous for orchards - especially its orange trees.

"Now it is a desert. The trees have been martyred ... so the mural depicted martyred orange trees."

Article...

the project...
http://www.breakthesilencearts.org

by redjade Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:32

What is the Viking Bloc?
The Viking Bloc is a band of Viking warriors united to show support for Republicans and thier leader, George W. Bush, and thier policy of raping and pillaging of other countries. We are amassing and converging during the Republican National Convention to give New Yorkers a good idea of what foreign policy SHOULD look like.

What does the Viking Bloc do?
The warriors of the Viking Bloc will follow tradition with their ancestors and the leaders of today at the Republican National Convention. We plan to pillage and rape New York City side by side with our allies, the Republicans.

by pat c Tue Aug 10, 2004 14:30

DISTRAUGHT and emaciated survivors from an overcrowded African refugee ship that drifted for ten days before reaching Sicily described yesterday how they had pushed the dead overboard during their ordeal, including a one-year-old boy.

About 100 would-be immigrants from Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast had set off from Libya, but 28 died on the way when the engine broke down and the vessel drifted, Italian coastguards in Syracuse said. The corpses — including many women and children — were “simply tipped into the sea”, Vincenzo Mauro, chief of police in Syracuse, said.

The 72 survivors were rescued from their 45ft (14m) wooden boat 130 miles off Capo Passero on the Sicilian coast by the Zuiderdiep, a merchant ship from Gibraltar bound for Turkey, and taken to Sicily and Malta. One 25-year-old woman from Liberia said that her one-year-old son had been among those pushed overboard.

by redjade Tue Aug 10, 2004 19:39

Jobori has a 10-year plan to develop tourism and make it a pillar in an economy that has few natural resources besides oil. He hopes Iraq can draw two to three million tourists a year by then. But for now, even he warns tourists to stay away.

"We don't want good people from all over the world to come and be captured by criminals. I think they must wait," he said.

One element of his tourism plan includes a multi-million dollar development on Al Aras island on the Tigris River in the south of Baghdad. The project envisages five-star hotels and a Disney-type theme park.

Tourism is not just about revenue, Jobori believes.

"We need to change the psychology of Iraqis. If we give them a Disney city, if they have places to spend time at, they will feel free from sadness and terrorism and fear."

Iraq could leverage its bloody past in the same way that Vietnam and Cambodia have done.

by redjade Tue Aug 10, 2004 19:48

• Flash radiojacking: Jeremijenko and the Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT), will use a special transmitter to break into radio frequencies reserved for corporate stations, giving bursts of information so brief that the FCC can’t lock onto their transmission location. During the World Economic Forum demonstrations, BIT called attention to the Bush administration’s bogus claims about the safety of the air after 9/11. Each time New York’s airborne pollution surpassed the “safe” level, a warning bleep interrupted broadcasts of the local NPR affiliate.

• Bikes Against Bush: Joshua Kinberg will hit the streets on an “internet-enabled tactical media ‘weapon’ for non-violent creative resistance.” Outfitted with a laptop, webcam, GPS device, and cellphone, his tech-laden bike will receive text messages sent by visitors to www.BikesAgainstBush.com. At the push of a button, he’ll select messages to print on the pavement using a robotic chalk-spraying device; each anti-Bush screed will be time-stamped and gps-mapped on the website. The bike’s maneuverability effectively makes all of New York a free-speech zone.

• Backpack broadcast: Media collective neuroTransmitter will be toting com_muni_ports throughout the convention. These low-power, backpack-mounted radio transmitters will provide localized, on-the-fly media broadcasts, bearing witness, live, to events you won’t hear about on local Clear Channel stations.

• WiFi on Wheels: Yury Gitman will be pedaling his MagicBike during the convention. Offering free internet connectivity wherever it goes, it’ll wire the UK-based collective OpenSorcery so members can play a military simulator online and on the streets of New York using high-power projectors. Operations in Urban Terrain (OUT), a first-person-shooter game, aims to critique the militarization of civilian life following 9/11 – a condition the group describes as “ a government . . . at war with its own citizens, with soldiers in the midst of the fabric of ordinary life” – by literally broadcasting the game’s violence on city walls.

• Inflated Crowd Counts: When the demonstration ends, police will inevitably lowball crowd sizes, while activists will present overly optimistic numbers. The Bureau of Inverse Technology will calculate verifiable figures, thanks to a wireless video camera tethered to a helium balloon high above the action. A rollerblader will maneuver the balloon throughout the entire crowd while the high-resolution camera beams visual data to laptops on the ground. The result: a composite image that’ll be analyzed by software similar to the kind used for counting microscopic cells in labs. “If Bush can dismiss this as a ‘focus group’ with the wave of his hand, how do you answer that? You have to have a higher standard of evidence, you have to have more compelling images,” says Jeremijenko. “And we end up with a family aero-portrait--a self-documentation of our action on the streets.”

more links and info at....

by redjade Tue Aug 10, 2004 20:13

Cuba: Castro's crackdown on journalists

Eric Umansky of Slate is writing a journal of his experiences as a reporter in Cuba, attempting to report on the fate of political dissidents and imprisoned journalists. Yesterday's entry is about his meeting with the "Ladies in White," the wives of the Cuban journalists imprisoned for up to twenty years, sometimes in solitary confinement, under Law 88, a "catch-all antisubversion clause that the government can invoke on will." Tuesday, one foreign correspondent working in Cuba told Umansky, "This place is so f-ed up. You think it's just another Third World getaway spot with nice beaches, because it's hot here and people complain about the economy. But underneath, man, it's f-ing East German

by pat c Wed Aug 11, 2004 11:09

Trade union leaders fear up to 700 jobs may be lost under government plans to replace the Water Service in Northern Ireland with a new company.

Four unions - representing about 1,800 employees - have joined forces to oppose the plans, which will also mean the introduction of water charges.

The new company is due to start operating in 18 months time and it is planned that within five years it will be financed entirely by new water charges.

However, the trade union, Nipsa, has said its members may take industrial action to save the jobs threatened by the proposals.

Nipsa's assistant general secretary Bumper Graham said strike action could not be ruled out.

"If that means having to close the Water Service down for a week or two, to safeguard the long-term public provision of water, we will," he said.

Full story at:

by pat c Wed Aug 11, 2004 12:44

Members of a special expedition researching the site of the famous Tunguska meteorite fall have claimed they had discovered parts of an extraterrestrial device.

The expedition, organized by the Siberian Public State Foundation “Tunguska Space Phenomenon” completed its work on the scene of Tunguska meteorite fall on August 9. It was the first expedition to the region since 2000. Guided by the space photos, the researchers scanned a wider territory in the vicinity of the Poligusa village for parts of the space object that crashed into Earth in 1908 and was later called the Tunguska meteorite.

The scientists claim that they found remains of an extraterrestrial technical device that allegedly had an accident in Siberia in 1908. They also say that they found the so called “deer stone” - an artifact repeatedly mentioned in the reports of the eyewitnesses of the Tunguska phenomenon. A part of the “deer stone” has been delivered to Krasnoyarsk for research.

The head of the expedition Yuri Lavbin told MosNews on Tuesday that the researchers had traced the possible trajectory of the space object, but this time they counted that it ran from West to East, unlike the members previous missions who thought that the object had flown East to West. The new approach allowed the expedition members to find a buried object covered with trees.

The object appeared to be a large block made with metal. The researchers chipped a piece of the object and will now test its composition.

(Hmmm, Trotsky was probably a survivor of the alien crew. pat c)

More at:

by pat c Wed Aug 11, 2004 14:08

ALERTED by the crash of his compound’s gates being forced open, the thump of running feet and shots, Maulawi Siddiq, 48, rushed from his house in alarm. From a window beside him a bearded man, dressed in a badged American army uniform and Afghan pukul hat, leapt into his path, rifleraised, yelling: “Hands up.”
Mr Siddiq had just had his first encounter with Jonathan K. Idema, aka “Mad Jack”, criminal, fraudster and fantasist, at present shackled in a Kabul cell facing charges includingtorture and illegal detention.

But if Mr Siddiq was fooled then so, too, were the American Special Forces and Nato experts who swarmed into the yard in Mr Idema’s footsteps: they apparently believed that they were operating in support of a legitimate operation in the Afghan capital rather than as the stooges of a maverick trickster launching a personal war on terror.

“I was very frightened,” Mr Siddiq recalls. “Following Jack there were about 20 American special forces tramping into my yard. I could see my brother and our guests standing with their hands against the wall. Their morning tea and furniture were thrown on the ground about them. I was blindfolded and pushed back into the yard. I could hear many other soldiers rush in and start throwing my books and possessions around as they searched. There were helicopters in the sky and many vehicles outside.”

The raid, on June 24, was the third time that month that Nato peacekeepers had accompanied Mr Idema on one of his operations. According to a Nato official in Kabul, it took little more than a call on a mobile phone from Mr Idema and the uniformed attire of his seven-man band, self-named the “Sabre Seven”, to convince them to back his raids.

“We thought we were operating with a legitimate special forces group,” the officer admitted yesterday. “We had no reason to believe any different until much later when the coalition commander told us Mr Idema wasn’t even in the military.”

More at:

by redjade Wed Aug 11, 2004 14:15

The political and humanitarian situation in Sudan’s western region of Darfur was again in the spotlight, Tuesday, thanks to a visit to south Sudan and Chad by the United States’ Senate Majority Leader, William Frist.

"What is going on there (in Darfur) is genocide. I disagree with the statement made by the EU (European Union) yesterday saying this is not genocide. The international community must not turn its back on this crisis," the Republican senator from Tennessee state told journalists at a press conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

A campaign of terror in Darfur by Arab militias who are reportedly backed by government has displaced 1.2 million people, of whom about 200,000 fled to neighbouring Chad.

by redjade Wed Aug 11, 2004 15:02

"Extreme democracy" is a political philosophy of the information era that puts people in charge of the entire political process. It suggests a deliberative process that places total confidence in the people, opening the policy-making process to many centers of power through deeply networked coalitions that can be organized around local, national and international issues. The choice of the word "extreme" reflects the lessons of the extreme programming movement in technology that has allowed small teams to make rapid progress on complex projects through concentrated projects that yield results far greater than previous labor-intensive programming practices. Extreme democracy emphasizes the importance of tools designed to break down barriers to collaboration and access to power, acknowledging that political realities can be altered by building on rapidly advancing generations of technology and that human organizations are transformed by new political expectations and practices made possible by technology.

Extreme democracy is not direct democracy, which assumes all people must be involved in every decision in order for the process to be just and democratic. Direct democracy is inefficient, regardless of the tools available to voters, because it creates as many, if not more, opportunities for obstruction of social decisions as a representative democracy. Rather, we assume that every debate one feels is important will be open to participation; that governance is not the realm of specialists and that activism is a critical popular element in making a just society.

Extreme democracy can exist alongside and through co-evolution with the representative systems in place today; it changes the nature of representation, as the introduction of sophisticated networked applications have reinvented the corporate decision-making process. Rather than debate how involved a citizen should be or fret over the lack of involvement among citizens of advanced democracies, the extreme democracy model focuses on the act of participation and assumes that anyone in a democracy is free to act politically. If individuals are constrained from action, they are not free, not citizens but subjects.

from the intro
http://www.extremedemocracy.com/about.html

download the book
http://www.extremedemocracy.com

by iosaf Wed Aug 11, 2004 16:05

Every week this summer a graveyard has been defaced in France. The vast majority of graves attacked were jewish. However muslim graves have also been attacked.
I had had thought to update every attack back in May, and somehow regret it now. It would have proved useful in charting a worsening situation that has led to the Sharon v. Chirac clash, when Sharon called for all jews to leave France forthwith.

In these last weeks, neonazis held a "convention" of sorts in Alsace.
http://www.libe.com/page.php?Article=229406
The situation is very worrying and the Left should seriously discuss the role it plays in anti-semitism. In the last week the Guardian columnist Gerry Gable has suggested that much anti-semitism is fueled by attitudes on the Left. It was republished with comments on UK indymedia -
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/08/295962.html
The graves are being defaced with the usual array of terrible symbols- the double flash of the SS, the backward swastika of the Nazis, and that symbol it ought pain all Irish to see associated with racism : the celtic cross.

A fellow activist here in Barcelona suggests that many older members of the Left ("the old style communists") nurse a prejudice *for* arabic states which is rooted in Nassarism of the 1960s and accordingly a prejudice *against* Israel, base prejudices which become enflamed in the current Palestinian v. Isreal conflict. This simplistic leftwing thinking, in it's attempt to reduce the complexity of European ethnic diversity to a "black and white" - (on the side of or on the side against Palestinians) easily combines with a more general increase in anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic feeling. I'd appreciate hearing people's thoughts on this.
Maybe someone could "do an article".


the last link is to a dossier of articles in today's Liberátion (France's leftwing daily).
http://www.libe.com/page.php?Article=229725

by pat c Wed Aug 11, 2004 16:56

The Gerritsen Collection - Women's History Online.

A new online resource created by the Women's Library in collaboration with the British Library.

In the late 1800s, Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen began collecting books and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and women's rights. By the time their successors finished their work in 1945, The Gerritsen Collection was the greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world, with materials spanning four centuries and fifteen languages.

This online resource delivers two million page images exactly as they appeared in the original printed works. Users can trace the evolution of feminism within a single country, as well as the impact of one country's movement on those of the others. In many cases, it also provides easy access to primary sources otherwise available only in a few rare book rooms.

by ICE T Wed Aug 11, 2004 17:12

President Niyazov of Turkmenistan has ordered the construction of a palace made of ice in the heart of his desert country, one of the hottest on earth.

It is the latest in a series of colossal building projects instigated by the all-powerful president that seem to defy the country's environment.

"Let us build a palace of ice," said President Niyazov, "big and grand enough for 1,000 people."

The palace will stand in the mountains just outside the capital, Ashgabat.

.....

The idea is to build the palace in the Copa Deg Mountains outside Ashgabat, now baking in the summer heat, with a long cable-car running up from the city.

"Our children can learn to ski," Mr Niyazov enthused, "we can build cafes there, and restaurants."

by iosaf EXPEL THE UK from the EU Wed Aug 11, 2004 17:24

the draft constitution of the European Union explicitely prohibits Human Cloning.

The UK has alone amongst the technologically advanced states continued to move to Human Cloning since changing it's own stem cell laws on Feb 23 2001.

Today's news from Newcastle is just another step on the road.

Reclaim the Genome!

by pat c Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:26

Scientists in the United States have found a way of turning lazy monkeys into workaholics using gene therapy.
Usually monkeys work hard only when they know a reward is coming, but the animals given this treatment did their best all the time.

Monkeys are rather like people in their approach to work - at least, those who live in a laboratory and learn to press levers for rewards of food and water.

They concentrate on their task only when the moment of delivery approaches.

Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health near Washington DC, led by Dr Barry Richmond, have now developed a genetic treatment which changes their work ethic markedly.

by pat c Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:38

An ancient native American treatment for cancer has been shown to have a beneficial effect despite scepticism from the medical establishment. Chaparral, an evergreen desert shrub, has long been used by native Americans to treat cancer, colds, wounds, bronchitis, warts, and ringworm.

But experts dismissed its worth, and warned it could be dangerous. Now researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina have shown an extract may shrink some tumours.

"Chaparral does not have a good track record, but this finding is interesting and suggests that the active ingredients should be investigated further "
Henry Scowcroft

Chaparral tea was widely used in the US as an alternative anti-cancer agent from the late 1950s to the 1970s.

More at:

by redjade Thu Aug 12, 2004 12:04

"IRAQ IS A SOVEREIGN nation now," said Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, when asked this week to comment on the arrest warrants recently issued against Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi political figure, and his nephew, Salem Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi tribunal prosecuting Saddam Hussein. "This latest investigation, that is a matter for Iraqi authorities to handle," he continued. "The rule of law is part of the new Iraq, and so we would expect there to be due process."

As a matter of publicly stated official policy, that was probably the right answer. For now, the exact nature of the charges, and the evidence backing them up, remain unclear: The Iraqi judge who issued the warrants has accused Ahmed Chalabi of counterfeiting and Salem Chalabi of murder, but no further details have emerged.

[....]

In the longer term, however, the administration cannot wash its hands of the Chalabis, nor can it pretend, indefinitely, that their affairs have nothing whatsoever to do with the United States. Ahmed Chalabi played a prominent role in convincing many people in Washington of the threat Saddam Hussein posed to this country, and his Iraqi National Congress received U.S. intelligence resources and funding to help overthrow the Baathist regime. The American administration in Iraq played a role both in appointing him to the Iraqi Governing Council and, later, in limiting his influence. As many remember, Mr. Chalabi sat behind Laura Bush this year during the president's State of the Union speech. If he is a fraudster, then those who supported him must be held accountable for doing so. If he is not, then the United States has an obligation to insist, publicly, that he not become the new Iraq's first political prisoner.

by fascinated. Thu Aug 12, 2004 13:30

The desert chaparral bush has the Latin name Larrea tridentata or Larrea diver-icata and is also known as the greasewood or creosote bush or as wild lilac.
Doesn't seem to be available in shops.
Could be a good anarcho-ecological career that.

by really fascinated. Thu Aug 12, 2004 14:22

The European press have picked up on the discovery of 50 kilograms of metalic debris at the Tunguska site in Siberia. They hope to have it completely analysed and everyone told exactly what it is by the 100th anniversary of the mystery explosion.


The Italian University of Bologna has a site dedicated to the mystery and research into it- "On June 30th, 1908, something exploded 8 km above the Stony Tunguska river. About 2150 square kilometres of Siberian taiga were devastated and 80 millions trees were overthrown. Up to now, it is not clear whether the great explosion was due to a comet or an asteroid or something else. We are searching for an answer"...
http://www-th.bo.infn.it/tunguska/
This russian based site is filled with information including the hypothesised trajectory. The current investigation being led by Yuri Lavbin favours a different trajectory to the traditional one.
http://www.orc.ru/%7Eazorcord/
And this final link is to "tunguska" a government funded research portal.
http://omzg.sscc.ru/TUNGUSKA/

by really really fascinating Thu Aug 12, 2004 14:32

held a dinner in Moscow of perishable food which had been abandoned in the permafrost in 1974. The foodstuffs consisting of butter, sugars, condensed milk aprictots, meat and chocolate had been buried at 1.5 metres on the coast of Kara Sea. According to Russian Biotechnology expert Vladimir Ledenev, their preservation will assist future military operations in the frozen areas of the "great north".

by more conventionally interesting Thu Aug 12, 2004 14:43

In which Mr Goss, (just like Thatcher), ruled out being a future CIA top boy on account of not being qualified.

by tom Thu Aug 12, 2004 16:31

June 29 :Oregon National Guardsmen outside the Iraqi Interior Mininistry observed prisoners being abused within the compound . After entering the base and disarming the interior ministery goons , they discovered brutalized prisoners and what appeared to be recently used torture equipment.
Col Daniel Hendrickson , the senior Oregon Guardsman at the scene , radioed for further instructions .He was ordered to hand back the prisoners and leave the compound immediately.
http://www.oregonlive.com/special/oregonian/
iraq/index.ssf?/base/frontpage/109196614530740.xml)

by redjade Thu Aug 12, 2004 17:17

"It is true I was in CIA from approximately the late 50’s to approximately the early 70’s. And it's true I was a case officer, clandestine services officer and yes, I do understand the core mission of the business. I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified. I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background probably. And uh, as my children remind me every day, 'Dad you got to get better on your computer.’ Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have."

– New Head of the CIA, Porter Goss, March 3, 2004

by redjade Thu Aug 12, 2004 17:34

France and the United States have begun a new race to compete for favours with undemocratic regimes in Africa. The competition is growing particularly in the oil- rich North and West Africa.

The French government announced last month that it is due to sign a military pact with former colony Algeria that would include weapons and technology transfer, training and intelligence sharing.

The agreement was negotiated by French defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie on a visit to Algiers July 19. Alliot-Marie, the first French defence minister to visit Algeria since the end of the bloody war of independence in 1962, said the "historic" agreement will "turn a page" in French-Algerian history.

[....]

It is no coincidence that the United States has been following a similar strategy of supporting military dictators in Africa while seeking access to natural resources in their countries.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Angola and Gabon in 2002 in the first trip ever by such a high-ranking U.S. official to these countries. Last year U.S. President George W. Bush visited Senegal, Nigeria, Botswana, Uganda and South Africa.

In March this year the U.S. government invited top ranking military officials of Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal and Tunisia to the U.S. European command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. The command centre also covers 48 African countries.

The Stuttgart summit covered representation from the Middle East through the Maghreb (Arabic North Africa) to the Gulf of Guinea. This is a region sitting above a giant sea of underground oil.

by pat c Fri Aug 13, 2004 12:06

Three BBC journalists were held at gunpoint for four hours by Israeli troops in the West Bank on Thursday. The television crew was accompanying a Palestinian doctor as he visited an elderly patient in the city of Nablus.

The five were then held by seven Israeli soldiers who had taken over the woman's home, the BBC said.

More at:

by redjade Fri Aug 13, 2004 13:30

In the battle to control one of the world's largest graveyards, U.S. Marines and soldiers say they are coping with a lot, including lingering regret. The vast cemetery in Najaf is sacred to Shiite Muslims, perhaps 2 million of whom lie buried in miles of desert adjoining the shrine of Imam Ali, son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad.

Soldiers involved in the fighting described how many of the most recent graves are marked by photos, which crumble when U.S. forces shell the cemetery walls to reach the militiamen hiding within.

"Wives, daughters, husbands," said Sgt. Hector Guzman, 28, of the 1st Cavalry Division's 5th Regiment. "You just know you're destroying that tomb." The Houston native shook his head. "It doesn't feel right sometimes."

"We feel bad that we're destroying, that we're desecrating graves and such," added Staff Sgt. Thomas Gentry, 29, of Altoona, Pa. "That's not what we want to do."

[....]

To close observers, the final signal for decisive battle came with the departure of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shiite cleric in Iraq and a longtime opponent of Sadr, who is widely regarded as an upstart. Sistani, who is famous for not having left his Najaf house in six years, traveled to London last week, just as the fighting with Sadr's militia erupted. The official explanation -- treatment for a heart condition -- brings a smile to the lips of U.S. commanders here.


"A lot of people think it's the green light for us to do what we have to do," said Maj. David Holahan, executive officer of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which has responsibility for Najaf.

by pat c Fri Aug 13, 2004 14:02

For the third year in a row, software companies are supplying schools with materials that promote their antipiracy position on copyright law. But for the first time this year, the library association is presenting its own material, hoping to give kids a more balanced view of copyright law.

The American Library Association will distribute its materials through high-school librarians this winter or spring. In September, the ALA will hold focus groups with teenagers to better understand how they use the Internet, what they think about the technology and what language they use. That information will contribute to ALA-created comic books that address various copyright issues relevant to students.

The ALA sees a need for this because materials offered by groups like the Business Software Alliance and the Motion Picture Association of America are designed to influence kids with one-sided information, said Rick Weingarten, director of information technology policy for the ALA. Topics like "fair use" -- the right to use copyright material without the owner's permission, a key concept in American law that intellectual-property experts say leads to innovation -- are not adequately addressed.

by redjade Fri Aug 13, 2004 14:28

The NYC IMC prints 200,000 copies of the Indypendent

''In preparation for the RNC protests, the Indypendent newspaper of the NYC IMC is going to print 200,000 copies for it's early August copy and 100,000 copies for it's late August issue. Damn that's a lot. I hope they're able to live up to the distribution nightmare involved in getting all those copies out to people.''

http://www.anarchogeek.com/archives/000416.html

Go download it at
http://www.indypendent.org/

by redjade Fri Aug 13, 2004 14:39

[ how embarassing ]

by redjade Fri Aug 13, 2004 15:08

Hidden Casualties Overview

Thousands of injured and ill soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are not being counted in the Pentagon's official tally of the wounded because they are considered "non-hostile" casualties. Some say that if they were included, it would triple the total casualty count. The Pentagon claims that until NOW's request, it hadn't been asked for those numbers. But, critics say these often debilitating injuries are not being reported in order to keep Americans from getting a clear picture of the human cost of war. NOW's Michele Mitchell profiles some of these soldiers who may spend the rest of their lives scarred and disabled, but whose sacrifices are not being counted by the nation they serve

by iosaf Fri Aug 13, 2004 15:44

With the seizure of both servers (with geographical location in USA and UK) of Hezbolah.
The organisation is listed as a terrorist grouping by the US Department of Global Menace and exactly what we're doing about it. But it isn't listed as being such by the Europeans (who as of yet don't have an institutionalised list of Global Menace) [and accordingly can't tell you or WON'T tell you who is globally menacing or not - yet]
Spokespeople for Hezbolah have said their site will be back online in a few days, so don't worry about a thing you'll be able to catch back up on their side of things in no time.
Hezbolah made your telly screens for being one of the main focus of Lebanese resistance against the Isreali invasion and occupation in the 1980s. Now piss your mammy off loads, and click on these lines and register your computer as supporting an integrated part of the Global Menace and Scourge of Terrorism.
http://www.hizbullah.org
http://www.hizbullah.tv

by paul c Fri Aug 13, 2004 22:35

came across this on infoshop.org

i presume justin will post something up later...

Irish Activists Rally To Grant Vanunu Asylum
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/09/22/5995007

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2004/08/13/story161644.html

by iosaf Sat Aug 14, 2004 14:57

With the news that DNA testing had helped track down those responsible for defacing a jewish graveyard in Lyons in the last week yesterday, and cemetary attacks leaving what appears to be a tourist trail spreading from Alsace to Corsica, last night anti-Jewish graffiti was left on the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

It was popularly thought a few months ago, that those responsible for this attacks might be marginalised and extremist muslims, this popular theory has now turned (again) to blaming the myriad groups of "skinhead" and "neo-nazi" groups, (many of whom find solace, servers and financial support in the USA). And it now appears that many of these types are "on holidays" taking their hate with them.

by iosaf Sat Aug 14, 2004 15:05

expressed his _personal_ belief that a withdrawl from the Golan Heights is possible and would not compromise Isreali security interests, rather it would be better to have a normal relationship with Syria.

The opinion he has expressed are at odds with the policy and direction of the Isreali Government.

{without being a bore, the strategic occupation of the Golan Heights is based on the increased effectivity of radar and anti-aircraft installations. In the past it made perfect sense to position radar on the heights when that nasty man Saddam was pointing his range of missiles like the Al Samoud and Scud at northern Isreal which lies on a long plain to the west of the mountains. However now that nasty man Saddam is no longer in charge of pointing Scuds and Samouds westwards, there is no military logic in occupying the territory around Nablus and so on. So the occupation of the heights has become a politically and culturally motivated exercise}

by iosaf Sat Aug 14, 2004 15:12

who has worked with Voices in the Wilderness in Iraq, and alliance for workers liberty has been refused entry to Isreal at Tel Aviv airport on the grounds "that her previous reports have not been objective enough.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/08/296237.html
and google-

by iosaf Sat Aug 14, 2004 15:21

The main competitors for human cloning advances that the UK have are Italian.
To explain it quickly, human bio tech was developed in the USA, but ran into ethical objection from the christian right. So in a brief period from about 1999 to 2001 most of the really dodgy research projects were transferred to either the UK or Italy wher the same capitalist investors continue their research but under different laws.

Thus we constantly see a triangle of evil scientific capitalist speculation between the fertility research programs of Kentucky and those of the UK and Italy.

Almost to coincide with the UK cloning news (which is always downplayed- "oh we're not cloning action men nietscheans yet - it's just to help rich old people with kidney problems honestly") Italy has pushed it's little wagon further down the road as well.

Be sure, this goes beyond the ethics of "are those cells a person" which these scientists constantly use, this is a question of -bad- science. They do not know what they are doing. They would not be doing what they are doing without mega-investment. They consistently hide their mistakes and errors and failures. And the building blocks are the very material that "make you".
that make diego maradona, that made Mozart that made Helen Keller.

Reclaim the Genome!
see also the global indymedia "biotech" section.

by Brian Covert / Independent Journalist Sat Aug 14, 2004 15:51

An in-depth interview with "human shield" Ken O'Keefe during his recent Japan tour, on direct action for Palestine, standing up to US military might in Iraq, the legacy of Hiroshima....and the better world to come
INTERVIEW WITH HUMAN SHIELD KEN O'KEEFE (part 1)

http://www.sfimc.net/news/2004/08/1701718.php

and

INTERVIEW WITH HUMAN SHIELD KEN O'KEEFE (part 2)

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/1701715.php

by redjade Sun Aug 15, 2004 12:53

Scaffold-like structures have been built from RNA in a small but important step for exploiting biology to build nanoscale machines.

"Our work shows that we can control the construction of three-dimensional arrays made from RNA blocks of different shapes and sizes," says Peixuan Guo, a professor of molecular virology in Purdue's School of Veterinary Medicine. "With further research, RNA could form the superstructures for tomorrow's nanomachines."

[....]

"Biology builds beautiful nanoscale structures, and we'd like to borrow some of them for nanotechnology," Guo said. "The trouble is, when we're working with such tiny blocks, we are short of tiny steam shovels to push them around. So we need to design and construct materials that can assemble themselves."

by redjade Sun Aug 15, 2004 13:31

'In fairness, let's all admit that Kerry is not exactly a wizard at making his positions clear and unequivocal. He does bring some of this on himself.'

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004512.php

by redjade Sun Aug 15, 2004 13:34

Meanwhile, the U.S. military—the only force in Iraq remotely capable of keeping the country from falling apart—finds itself in a maddening situation where tactical victories yield strategic setbacks.

The Marines could readily defeat the insurgents in Najaf, but only at the great risk of inflaming Shiites—and sparking still larger insurgencies—elsewhere. In the Sadr City section of Baghdad, as U.S. commanders acknowledge, practically every resident is an insurgent.

by redjade Sun Aug 15, 2004 14:14

President Bush is to announce on Monday that the United States will withdraw up to 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia in the most significant rearrangement of the American military since the end of the Cold War, an administration official said Saturday.

Bush will also announce in a speech on Monday that the withdrawal will affect an additional 100,000 military support staff and family members, who will leave the regions as well.

by John Meehan Mon Aug 16, 2004 00:52

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1331

by Nikhil Nigam - WorldFoodPolicy.org Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:51 info at worldfoodpolicy dot org London 00442082705793

www.WorldFoodPolicy.org
www.WorldFoodPolicy.org is a new web site that seeks to examine the inextricable link between biotechnology, intellectual property rights, food trade and poverty. The website welcomes contributions from policy analysts, campaigners, academics, activists.
We believe that globalisation is accelerating the process of marginalisation of farmers in the Third World in ways that advocates of Global free trade are not aware of or regard as inevitable.

by pat c Mon Aug 16, 2004 12:02

About 1,600 Palestinians in Israeli jails have begun a hunger strike to protest at conditions they say are humiliating and unnecessary.
But Israel's security minister said they would not bow to pressure and the prisoners could "starve to death".

The inmates' demands include an end to strip searches and more prison visits.

Israel argues that prisoners continue to plan attacks from within jail and their contact with the outside world must be restricted as far as possible.


As far as I'm concerned, they can strike for a day, a month, until death

Tzahi Hanegbi
Israeli Internal Security Minister

The open-ended hunger strike is currently taking place in several jails, and organisers of the protest say most of the around 7,500 Palestinians held by Israel are expected to join it by the end of the week.

'Like animals'

A statement from the Palestinian Prisoners Society announced the start of the hunger strike, accusing Israel of "robbing us of all our rights, treading on our dignity and treating us like animals".

The Palestinians are presenting the strike as non-political. Their demands include:


guards to stop conducting strip searches

more frequent contact with families; organisers say 40% of inmates are currently denied any visits

improved sanitary conditions

access to public telephones

A spokesman for the Israeli prison service, Ian Domnitz, told AFP news agency that the protest would not be classified as a hunger strike for 48 hours but was already being deemed contrary to regulations.

In response, prison officials have confiscated televisions and radios, stopped the sales of cigarettes and sweets, and stopped all visits.

"As far as I'm concerned, they can strike for a day, a month, until death. We will ward off this strike and it will be as if it never happened," Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi told reporters.

The BBC's Richard Miron in Jerusalem says the stand-off could escalate in scale and political significance.

Issa Qarage, a prisoners' rights activist in the West Bank, told Reuters news agency that the hunger strike would spread from the main prisons to detention camps in military bases.

Protests have also been taking place in support of the prisoners, including in Bethlehem and the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

by paul c Mon Aug 16, 2004 13:25

installed cctv cameras in rathfarnham off -license to study buying habits

by pat c Mon Aug 16, 2004 14:08

With more than 4,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel Prize winners, having signed a statement opposing the Bush administration's use of scientific advice, this election year is seeing a new development in the uneasy relationship between science and politics.

In the past, individual scientists and science organizations have occasionally piped up to oppose specific federal policies such as Ronald Reagan's Star Wars missile defense plan. But this is the first time that a broad spectrum of the scientific community has expressed opposition to a president's overall science policy.

Last November, President Bush gave physicist Richard Garwin a medal for his "valuable scientific advice on important questions of national security." Just three months later, Garwin signed the statement condemning the administration for misusing, suppressing and distorting scientific advice.

Scientists' feud with the Bush administration, building for almost four years, has intensified this election year. The White House has sacked prominent scientists from presidential advisory committees, science advocacy groups have released lengthy catalogs of alleged scientific abuses by the administration and both sides have traded accusations at meetings and in the pages of research journals.

"People are shocked by what's going on," said Kurt Gottfried, a Cornell University physicist and chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has been in the vanguard of the campaign against the administration's science policy. Although generally not political, the group -- which advocates for use of accurate scientific information in policymaking -- has occasionally taken liberal positions, such as opposition to nuclear weapons.

by pat c Mon Aug 16, 2004 16:26

Ancient Rome's fish pens confirm sea-level fears

Coastal fish pens built by the Romans have unexpectedly provided the most accurate record so far of changes in sea level over the past 2000 years. It appears that nearly all the rise in sea level since Roman times has happened in the past 100 years, and is most likely the result of human activity.

Sea-level change is a measure of the relative movement between land and sea surfaces. Tide-gauge records show that the sea level has been rising 1 to 2 millimetres a year since widespread measurements began around 1900, but do not pinpoint when the trend started.

Earlier sea levels can be estimated from geological data, but the accuracy is limited to about half a metre, which is not enough to precisely chart the history of sea-level rise.

So Kurt Lambeck of the Australian National University in Canberra turned to fish pens on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy for a more accurate record of ancient sea level.

More at: