May 9, 2006 News
Rice admits she responded to Iran letter before US had it translated
From an interview with the NBC editorial board as released by the State Department. (Just off wires, can’t find link yet). Rice also admitted she hadn’t read the letter in an interview with the Associated Press editorial board.
¤ Full Text : The President of Iran’s Letter To President Bush
¤ Learning About Racism, Live on NPR and CNN
¤ Does It Really Matter Who Runs the CIA?
My Encounter with Rumsfeld
All in all, my encounter with Rumsfeld was for me a highly instructive experience. The Center’s president, Peter White, singled out Rumsfeld’s “honesty” in introducing him, and 99 percent of those attending seemed primed to agree. Indeed, their reaction brought to mind film footage of rallies in Germany during the ’30s.
¤ Suicide Truck Bomber Kills 17 in Iraq
¤ E-Mails Show Brown Disputed Levee Breach
¤ Gold hits $700 for first time since 1980
Russia Explodes over “Blackmail” Remarks
When U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney publicly accused Russia of undemocratic policies and attempts to “blackmail” Europe through its oil supplies, he probably underestimated the turbulence that would follow.
¤ Korean Farmers Say No to Giant US Base
¤ Cronyism At Any Cost, Once Again!
¤ BUSH IS NOT HITLER, II
¤ US Democrat Biden advocates the communal break-up of Iraq
¤ Neocons Dismember the CIA
¤ Tehran reaches out to US in surprise move
¤ Iraqi turmoil leaves at least 42 dead
¤ Blair: I’ll quit next year – trust me
¤ General who eavesdropped on public is new CIA chief
¤ Recruiting Abuses Mount as Army Struggles to Meet Goals
Dolts or Liars
Either most members of the media elite have a reading comprehension problem – which would necessarily result in low scores for them on standard IQ tests – or they deliberately misrepresent to you what they have read. Now, that’s not too serious when you can determine for yourself whether they are dolts or liars.
¤ Rumsfeld denies making claims Iraq had WMDs
¤ Violence in Iraq Leaves at Least 34 Dead
¤ Foreign Policy, Monetary Policy, and Gas Prices
¤ Straw’s departure strengthens Blair’s agenda against Iran
The Press and Priorities – What’s Really Important
Well, there they go again. The press is honing in on the big media event of the day – the Kennedy traffic accident. I don’t care about his accident. I am happy that he was not injured but his personal problems are none of my business. Voyeurism is not my thing. I don’t care about Laura Bush’s traffic accident either. I don’t care about Cheney’s daughter’s sex life. I don’t care about Michael Jackson, or Madonna, or the private life of any celebrity.
¤ None of Our Business
¤ Acquitted Zuma ready to fight for presidency
¤ Cui Bono? Negroponte or Rumsfeld?
¤ N-strike on Iran absurd: Blair
2 Years Later, Slayings in Iraq and Lost Cash Are Mysteries
The killing of Fern Holland, a human rights worker from Oklahoma, remains unsolved and as mysterious as it was when her body was found riddled with bullets on a desolate stretch of road near one of Iraq’s southern holy cities in March 2004. Now, federal investigators are grappling with a second mystery: what happened to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash issued by American authorities to Ms. Holland and Robert J. Zangas, a press officer who died in the same attack near Karbala, in the days before their deaths?
¤ Darfur protest forces UN envoy to retreat
¤ Bush approval rating falls to new low in poll
May 8, 2006 News
¤ Moussaoui Asks to Withdraw Guilty Plea
¤ Violence in Iraq Leaves at Least 34 Dead
The US’s geopolitical nightmare
By drawing attention to Iraq and the obvious role oil plays in US policy today, the George W Bush-Dick Cheney administration has done just that: it has drawn the world’s energy-deficit powers’ attention firmly to the strategic battle over energy, and especially oil.
¤ The Misuses of “Anti-Semitism”
¤ Hungry Marines Asking Iraqis For Food
¤ New U.S. Foreign Policy for Palestine; Starvation
¤ Paradise Now
Life in the Bush Economy: Fat, Drunk and Broke
American consumers are heavily indebted. The growth of consumer debt is what has been fueling the economy. Social Security and Medicare are in financial trouble, as are many company pension plans. Decide for yourself–is this the economic picture of a superpower that can dictate to the world, or is it the picture of a second-rate country dependent on foreigners to finance its consumption and the operation of its government?
¤ Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
¤ Fresh violence hits Iraq cities
¤ Blair’s terrible legacy
¤ Straw Canned Over Iran?
¤ British tactics reviewed as Basra erupts
¤ Iran breaks silence with US to offer nuclear ‘solutions’
¤ Strong Earthquake Rocks Indonesian Island
¤ Insurgents Bomb Iraqi Oil Pipeline, Kill 3
¤ Landing a big fish: as good as it gets for Bush
¤ One Excellent Reason Not to Join the Military
¤ Did Bush Force British Minister Out?
¤ NBC, CBS, Fox cropped Rumsfeld questioner’s challenges
¤ Brazil Unveils Uranium Enrichment Center
¤ Vice Squad
¤ Colbert shows media who’s boss
¤ Mainstream Media, Why the Blackout on Stephen Colbert?
The Last Gasp of the Dollar; Iran bourse opens next week
“Everybody knows the real reason for American belligerence is not the Iranian nuclear program, but the decision to launch an oil bourse where oil will be traded in euros instead of US dollars….The oil market will break the dominance of the dollar and lead to a decline of global American hegemony.” Igor Panarin, Russian political scientist.
¤ The Final Say
¤ Jimmy Carter: Punishing the innocent is a crime
¤ The Real Oil Story: The Oil in Iraq
¤ Part of me died when I saw this cruel killing
¤ Raising the stakes on Iran
The fall and fall of Afghanistan
“Contractors in Afghanistan are making big money for bad work.” That is the conclusion reached in a new report from CorpWatch written by an Afghan-American journalist who returned to her native country to examine the progress of reconstruction.
Cuban, Venezuelan Aid Streams Into Bolivia
Gladys Melani was nearly blind from cataracts. Juana Mamani was illiterate. Sharon Mayra didn’t officially exist. What these three Bolivians had in common was poverty, and help from Cuba and Venezuela in solving their problems.
¤ Another brick in the wall
¤ Interview With Retired CIA Analyst Ray McGovern
¤ Iran seeks euro-denominated oil market
¤ Spain accepts Bolivia gas plans
¤ Bolivia wins first round of gas battle after Brazil backs down
¤ Mediocre goods of all kinds flood Iraq in absence of controls
¤ The invaders enjoying our soil, sun and water, while Iraqis are dying
¤ Wargaming Iran
¤ Baghdad Morgue Daily Visit for Iraqis
¤ Fire erupts at Palestinian parliament
¤ The Drug of War
May 7, 2006 News
Congo’s tragedy: the war the world forgot
In a country the size of Western Europe, a war rages that has lasted eight years and cost four million lives. Rival militias inflict appalling suffering on the civilian population, and what passes for political leadership is powerless to stop it. This is Congo, and the reason for the conflict – control of minerals essential to the electronic gadgetry on which the developed world depends – is what makes our blindness to the horror doubly shaming.
¤ CONNIE MACK’S MYTHS VS. VENEZUELAN FACTS
¤ The president says immigrants ‘must learn to misinterpretate English’
¤ Nationalization of Gas!
¤ CIA in disarray as Rumsfeld starts turf war with rival
¤ Israeli strikes on Gaza claim six more lives
¤ 4 Car Bombings Kill 17, Hurt 44 in Iraq
¤ How Basra riots turned bloody
¤ The Kennedys: Cover-up with a capital K?
¤ Eight Palestinians killed in IDF operations over weekend
¤ Russia sends $10 million in aid to Abbas, bypassing Hamas
¤ 10 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Afghan Crash
¤ Book: Palestinian Killed With Chocolate
Bird Brains
Bird flu seems about as remote a threat as terrorism at this point. Which is not to say that either should be dismissed: both are weapons of mass delusion in the government’s hands. Terrorism has nigh destroyed the country, not through murderous mayhem but through the state’s fearmongering and tyranny. Bird flu looks to finish the job.
¤ Five servicemen die as insurgents in Iraq bring down UK helicopter
¤ New Chief Will Find C.I.A. Is Hobbled on Iran
¤ A U.S. ‘Propaganda’ Program, al-Zarqawi, and ‘The New York Times’
¤ Is American Foreign Policy an Infinite Crisis?
Mission Akkomplished
I blinked at the words on my screen. I had been trolling the internet, looking for reasons why the US does not celebrate its workers on the same day as the rest of the world, even if the origins of that date happen to be profoundly American: 1 May 1886, when demands for an eight-hour working day by Chicago trade unions (mostly made up of European immigrants) were met by violent police repression.
¤ Is The US Provoking Civil War in Iraq?
¤ The Tragedy of False Confessions
¤ Islamophobia, a Retrospective
¤ We Came, We Marched, And … ?
¤ News Muse
Rumsfeld Uses Colin Powell as a Human Shield
Challenged by veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern to explain why he had claimed to “know” before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction when that suggestion had been repeatedly called into question, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tried to use former Secretary of State Colin Powell as a human shield
¤ Atomic ‘Incident’ In The US?
¤ No troops to Afghanistan: India
¤ “United 93”: What Happened on the Planes?
The two crucial mistakes that cost Straw his job
Mr Straw has said repeatedly that it is “inconceivable” that there will be a military strike on Iran and last month dismissed as “nuts” a report that George Bush was keeping on the table the option of using tactical nuclear weapons against Tehran’s nuclear plants.
¤ Dozens killed in Iraq car bombs
¤ Israeli police evict Hebron settlers
¤ Israel kills second Palestinian farmer