tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75626633847720498622023-11-15T07:29:14.970-08:00M3R HOME5m3rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05233964087854887980noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7562663384772049862.post-16232129340953259512015-08-11T15:25:00.000-07:002015-08-11T15:25:07.282-07:00<div class="mobile-post" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.75em;">
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Selves and Others<br />http://www.selvesandothers.org</div>
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<br />~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br />Tuesday, November 15th, 2005</div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Mother Jones<br />Policymakers on Torture Take Note-Remember Pinochet<br />Addington, Yoo, Gonzales, and others should think carefully about their<br />travel plans.<br />by Philippe Sands<br /><br />This article first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfgate.com).</div>
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Before embarking on international travels, David Addington and others who are<br />said to be closely associated with the crafting of the Bush administration's<br />policy on the interrogation of detainees would do well to reflect on the fate<br />of Augusto Pinochet.</div>
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The Chilean senator and former head of state was unexpectedly arrested during<br />a visit to London on Oct. 16, 1998, at the request of a Spanish judge who<br />sought his extradition on various charges of international criminality,<br />including torture.</div>
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The House of Lords-Britain's upper house-ruled that the 1984 convention<br />prohibiting torture removed any right he might have to claim immunity from<br />the English courts and gave a green light to the continuation of extradition<br />proceedings.</div>
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As counsel for Human Rights Watch, I participated in that case. This allowed<br />me to witness the case firsthand. It also gave me the opportunity to chat<br />with Pinochet's advisers, and one conversation in particular has remained<br />vividly at the forefront of my mind. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2005/11/torture.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Democracy Now!<br />Former U.S. Army Interrogator Describes the Harsh Techniques He Used in<br />Iraq, Detainee Abuse by Marines and Navy Seals and Why "Torture is the Worst<br />Possible Thing We Could Do"<br /><br />by Tony Lagouranis<br /><br />With deep remorse, former U.S. Army interrogator Specialist Tony Lagouranis<br />talks about his own involvement with abusing detainees in Iraq and torture<br />carried out by the Navy Seals. He apologizes to the Iraqi people and urges<br />U.S. soldiers to follow their conscience. Lagouranis returned from Iraq in<br />January and until now had given no live interviews. But Lagouranis says he<br />now feels it his duty to speak out about what he witnessed in Iraq: His use<br />of harsh interrogation techniques on prisoners in Iraq including dogs, sleep<br />deprivation, prolonged isolation and dietary manipulation. How Navy SEALS<br />induced hypothermia by using ice water to lower the body temperature of<br />prisoners.</div>
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Serving in Fallujah and going through the clothes and pockets of some 500<br />dead bodies to try and identify them.</div>
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The corpses on men, women and children in Fallujah, which had been lying in<br />the streets for days and had been "eaten by dogs and birds and maggots," were<br />then stacked up in a warehouse where U.S. soldiers ate and slept.<br /><br />-> http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/15/1632233<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Raw Story<br />Exclusive: More than 13,000 being held by coalition in Iraqi prisons; Less<br />than 2% have been convicted<br /><br />by Larisa Alexandrovna<br /><br />As more and more Iraqis have been detained and released, the insurgency has<br />intensified. The number detained has more than doubled in the last year and a<br />half; the number of attacks has also more than doubled over the same period.</div>
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Recent documents leaked to RAW STORY reveal that as of Nov. 8, coalition<br />forces in Iraq held 13,514 in Iraqi prisons. The documents also reveal the<br />grim landscape of Iraq's internment system, in which just two percent of<br />those detained been convicted. A UN report has confirmed the basic figures.</div>
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A slide created by Detainee Operations at US Central Command (CENTCOM),<br />provided to RAW STORY, reveals that 13,514 detainees are currently held<br />inside coalition-run internment camps throughout Iraq. The figure represents<br />a huge spike from March 2004 - when just 5,673 were reported held, according<br />to a source familiar with the documents. (...)<br /><br />-><br />http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Exclusive_More_than_13000_being_held_1115.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />ZNet<br />Haiti Action<br /><br />by David Welsh and Nora Barrows-Friedman<br /><br />Flashpoints Radio's Nora Barrows-Friedman interviews Dave Welsh, Haiti<br />Action Committee</div>
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Flashpoints: The paltry coverage of the situation in Haiti these days mainly<br />consists of speculation and U.S. response to the upcoming elections, which<br />many people ion Haiti believe will be a total and complete sham. Meanwhile,<br />vicious attacks on Haitians continue unabated by the United Nations forces<br />and the death squads. Two days ago the Cite Soleil neighborhood in Port au<br />Prince was attacked by the UN forces. Joining us to talk about this is Dave<br />Welsh. Welsh, an activist with the Haiti Action Committee, just returned from<br />a fact-finding delegation [to] Haiti. Dave Welsh, welcome back to<br />Flashpoints.</div>
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Welsh: It's good to be here.</div>
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Flashpoints: First of all, tell us what happened in Cite Soleil two days ago,<br />talk about these attacks by the UN so-called "peacekeeping" forces.</div>
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Welsh: I was on the phone with a Haitian human rights worker yesterday<br />(Wednesday, November 10th) and Tuesday, and he told us that there were three<br />attacks that took place on Tuesday (November 9th). One was at midnight at two<br />in the morning, the second was at seven in the morning, and the third was at<br />four in the afternoon. And these attacks were with tanks, with cannons<br />mounted on them, and when I say they are tanks, they are armored personnel<br />carriers, except they don't have treads, so they are just like tanks<br />otherwise. And they had helicopters also firing. The toll, according to this<br />human rights worker was fifteen wounded and two dead. There was a young woman<br />of twenty-three, who was killed, and a man in his early forties was killed,<br />and fifteen were wounded. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=9128<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Dissident Voice<br />Trying to Look the Reality of Female<br /><br />by Sam Husseini<br /><br />Reports have it that Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman, attempted to blow up<br />wedding celebrators, passerbyers and herself at the Radisson Hotel in Amman<br />last Thursday. The Associated Press is reporting that her brother Thamer<br />al-Rishawi "was killed during a U.S. assault on Fallujah in April 2004, when<br />an air-to-ground missile hit his pickup as he was driving wounded people to a<br />hospital, according to Ramadi residents speaking on condition of anonymity<br />for fear of retribution from militants."</div>
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There are lots of reasons to doubt virtually every bit of information one<br />gets from the mainstream media, particularly in situations like these --<br />including the implication that the above-cited sources do not fear<br />retribution from U.S. militants and their proxies. But if the AP's words bear<br />a resemblance to the actual facts, this case would have some similarities to<br />the that of Hanadi Jaradat. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Husseini1115.htm<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />TomDispatch<br />Wag the Dog<br />Crisis Scenarios for Deflecting Attention from the President's Woes<br />by Michael T. Klare<br /><br />In the 1998 movie Wag the Dog, White House spinmeister Conrad Brean seeks to<br />deflect public attention from a brewing scandal over an alleged sexual<br />encounter in the White House between the president and an all-too-young Girl<br />Scout-type by concocting an international crisis. Advised by a Hollywood<br />producer (played with delicious perversity by Dustin Hoffman), Brean "leaks"<br />a fraudulent report that Albania has acquired a suitcase-sized nuclear device<br />and is seeking to smuggle it into the United States. This obviously justifies<br />an attention-diverting military reprisal. The press falls for the false<br />report (sound familiar?) and all discussion of the president's sex scandal<br />disappears from view -- or, as Brean would have it, the "tail" of<br />manufactured crisis wags the "dog" of national politics.</div>
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As Brean explains all this to the White House staff in the film, American<br />presidents have often sought to distract attention from their political woes<br />at home by heating up a war or crisis somewhere else. Now that the current<br />occupant of the White House is facing roiling political scandals of his own,<br />it stands to reason that he, too, or his embattled adviser Karl Rove (not to<br />speak of his besieged Vice President, Dick Cheney) may be thinking along such<br />lines. Could Rove -- today's real-life version of Conrad Brean -- already be<br />cooking up a "wag the dog" scenario? Only those with access to the innermost<br />sanctum of George Bush's White House can know for sure, but it is hardly an<br />improbable thought, given that they have done so in the past. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=36399<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />International Socialist Review<br />UPS buys Overnite<br />Clear and present danger<br />by Joe Allen<br /><br />Originally published in the International Socialist Review #42, July-August<br />2005.</div>
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In early May, United Parcel Service (UPS) announced that it was buying<br />Overnite Transport for $1.25 billion. Wall Street and the business press<br />greeted this announcement with great applause and soaring stock prices.</div>
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UPS, known to most people by its familiar brown trucks and "What can Brown do<br />for you?" commercials, is already the world's largest parcel delivery<br />company. It is one of the largest private sector unionized employers in the<br />United States, with the Teamsters representing nearly 215,000 of its workers,<br />making it the largest Teamster employer in the United States. The Teamsters<br />have lost nearly a million members since the late 1970s. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article12229.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Editor & Publisher<br />Kristof Proposes Two-Year Pullout in Iraq<br /><br />by Greg Mitchell<br /><br />The New York Times columnist says today we should pull "at least" half of<br />our troops out of Iraq by the end of 2006 with the rest to follow by the end<br />of the following year. Also, we should by then get rid of all of our military<br />bases there. "All the Iraq options are bad," he declares. "But this is the<br />least bad."</div>
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(November 15, 2005) -- In his Sunday column for The New York Times, Nicholas<br />Kristof said he had a notion about how to solve our Iraq problem. One hangup:<br />He won't let us in on it until his next column, on Tuesday. Oh well, we've<br />waited this long.</div>
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All Kristof would say on Sunday is that he opposes both Bush's<br />stay-the-course plan as well as an "immediate" withdrawal. This, of course,<br />is simply knocking down straw men. Bush's strategy has been thoroughly<br />discredited, and hardly anyone calls for bringing the troops home<br />immediately, in time for Thanksgiving or even Christmas. (...)<br /><br />-><br />http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001480024<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />BuzzFlash<br />Scott Ritter Tells the Complete Story Why We're in Iraq<br />It Begins with the CIA's Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam<br />Hussein<br />by Scott Ritter<br /><br />Interview Conducted by BuzzFlash Senior Editor Scott Vogel.</div>
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The foundation of our involvement in Iraq is corrupt. You can't build<br />anything positive from this corrupt foundation. If you want to speak of<br />solving the Iraq problem, we have to go back to how we got into this mess to<br />begin with. ... The same people who deceived us getting into Iraq are<br />deceiving us on a daily basis about what's going on in Iraq, and we can't<br />ignore this.</div>
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There is a shocking truth behind the invasion of Iraq, which Scott Ritter<br />reveals in Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy<br />to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (a BuzzFlash premium). Scott<br />Ritter was a top UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 through 1998,<br />frequently serving as the chief inspector. That gives him direct knowledge of<br />what happened in Iraq, historical context for interpreting what happened, and<br />-- another key -- independence from domestic politics, because the UN<br />employed him, not our own executive branch. Those are powerful keys to<br />understanding the mess the U.S. finds itself in today, and telling the truth<br />about it. Before working for the UN, Ritter was a major in the U.S. Marines<br />and a ballistic missile adviser to General Schwarzkopf in the first Gulf War.<br />In this unadorned, plain speaking interview, Scott Ritter tells BuzzFlash<br />readers just what got us into Iraq the second time.</div>
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[November 15, 2005]<br /><br />-> http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/11/int05045.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Asia Times<br />Afghan drug problem solved, praise the laudanum<br /><br />by Ramtanu Maitra<br /><br />Washington needs Afghanistan's warlords and the warlords need the opium<br />trade, which is why one "democratic success" the US has brought to the<br />country is the mushrooming of opium production to 87% of the world's total.<br />And to disarm those who might perversely see this as a political<br />embarrassment, there's a simple proposal on the table: legalize the opium<br />production for "medicinal purposes".</div>
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Reports indicate the West is now working toward a "solution" to the opium<br />explosion in Afghanistan, namely the licensing of legal opium production for<br />medical purposes.</div>
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The formal proposal was floated in September by the Senlis Council, a French<br />think tank on narcotics. The council's study was conducted in partnership<br />with Kabul University as well as academic centers in Europe and North<br />America, such as Ghent University, Lisbon University and the University of<br />Toronto.</div>
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The proposal comes in the wake of a general admission by Washington, its<br />adjunct in Kabul and the United Nations that eradication of drugs in<br />Afghanistan cannot be accomplished by the warriors against terror.</div>
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Touching a sensitive chord, however, Afghanistan's Counter-Narcotics Minister<br />Habibullah Qaderi questioned the timing of the Senlis report. "We don't want<br />to confuse the Afghan people, because while the government on the one hand<br />wants to control and stop cultivation, we are talking about licensing."</div>
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What Qaderi did not say was that the West, being unable to eradicate opium,<br />is moving to repackage Afghanistan's uncontrollable scourge as a legalized<br />and regulated industry, to be included along with elections among the<br />"democratic successes" in that benighted land. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GK16Ag01.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Independent<br />Afghanistan: The war with no end<br /><br />by Justin Huggler<br /><br />British troops have come under attack in Kabul and Nato forces were targeted<br />in two co-ordinated suicide car bombings in which at least four people died.</div>
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The attacks took place as ministers revealed that units are preparing to<br />extend Britain's role in Afghanistan when it takes command of the<br />international peacekeeping operation next year.</div>
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John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, told Parliament that Britain<br />faced a "prolonged" involvement in the country. But MPs warned last night<br />that British troops faced being mired in a long-term military commitment to a<br />country in the grip of a growing insurgency. (...)<br /><br />-> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article327097.ece<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it<br /><br />by George Monbiot<br /><br />Now we know napalm and phosphorus bombs have been dropped on Iraqis, why<br />have the hawks failed to speak out?</div>
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Did US troops use chemical weapons in Falluja? The answer is yes. The proof<br />is not to be found in the documentary broadcast on Italian TV last week,<br />which has generated gigabytes of hype on the internet. It's a turkey, whose<br />evidence that white phosphorus was fired at Iraqi troops is flimsy and<br />circumstantial. But the bloggers debating it found the smoking gun.</div>
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The first account they unearthed in a magazine published by the US army. In<br />the March 2005 edition of Field Artillery, officers from the 2nd Infantry's<br />fire support element boast about their role in the attack on Falluja in<br />November last year: "White Phosphorous. WP proved to be an effective and<br />versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and,<br />later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents<br />in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with<br />HE [high explosive]. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents,<br />using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."</div>
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The second, in California's North County Times, was by a reporter embedded<br />with the marines in the April 2004 siege of Falluja. "'Gun up!' Millikin<br />yelled ... grabbing a white phosphorus round from a nearby ammo can and<br />holding it over the tube. 'Fire!' Bogert yelled, as Millikin dropped it. The<br />boom kicked dust around the pit as they ran through the drill again and<br />again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they<br />call 'shake'n'bake' into... buildings where insurgents have been spotted all<br />week." (...)</div>
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[page 31 | Comment & Debate]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1642831,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Independent<br />The fog of war: white phosphorus, Fallujah and some burning questions<br /><br />by Andrew Buncombe and Solomon Hughes<br /><br />The controversy has raged for 12 months. Ever since last November, when US<br />forces battled to clear Fallujah of insurgents, there have been repeated<br />claims that troops used "unusual" weapons in the assault that all but<br />flattened the Iraqi city. Specifically, controversy has focussed on white<br />phosphorus shells (WP) - an incendiary weapon usually used to obscure troop<br />movements but which can equally be deployed as an offensive weapon against an<br />enemy. The use of such incendiary weapons against civilian targets is banned<br />by international treaty.</div>
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The debate was reignited last week when an Italian documentary claimed Iraqi<br />civilians - including women and children - had been killed by terrible burns<br />caused by WP. The documentary, Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre, by the state<br />broadcaster RAI, cited one Fallujah human-rights campaigner who reported how<br />residents told how "a rain of fire fell on the city". Yesterday,<br />demonstrators organised by the Italian communist newspaper, Liberazione,<br />protested outside the US Embassy in Rome. Today, another protest is planned<br />for the US Consulate in Milan. "The 'war on terrorism' is terrorism," one of<br />the newspaper's commentators declared. (...)<br /><br />-> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article327094.ece<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Independent<br />'I treated people who had their skin melted'<br /><br />by Dahr Jamail<br /><br />Abu Sabah knew he had witnessed something unusual. Sitting in November last<br />year in a refugee camp in the grounds of Baghdad University, set up for the<br />families who fled or were driven from Fallujah, this resident of the city's<br />Jolan district told me how he had witnessed some of the battle's heaviest<br />fighting.</div>
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"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud," he<br />said. He had seen "pieces of these bombs explode into large fires that<br />continued to burn on the skin even after people dumped water on the burns".</div>
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As an unembedded journalist, I spent hours talking to residents forced out of<br />the city. A doctor from Fallujah working in Saqlawiyah, on the outskirts of<br />Fallujah, described treating victims during the siege "who had their skin<br />melted". (...)<br /><br />-> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article327136.ece<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Independent<br />An attempt to excuse the inexcusable<br /><br /><br /><br />An accusation of the utmost seriousness has been levelled against the US<br />military. Evidence has emerged that appears to show that the US military used<br />white phosphorous bombs against civilians in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in<br />November last year. If this turns out to be true, a war crime has been<br />committed.</div>
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The photographic evidence, broadcast last week by the Italian state<br />broadcaster Rai, is horrendous. The station has obtained pictures from<br />Fallujah that show corpses with horrific burns. The victims' flesh has<br />dissolved, but often the clothes are left intact. This is consistent with the<br />use of white phosphorus on humans. The evidence is supported by testimony<br />from a former US soldier who claims to have been warned during the assault on<br />Fallujah that white phosphorous bombs - or "Willy Pete" as it is known in<br />military jargon - was to be used.</div>
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The Pentagon and the US State Department do not deny that white phosphorous<br />bombs have been used in Iraq. But they claim that phosphorous was used simply<br />to illuminate enemy positions in Fallujah. This is contradicted by the<br />photographic evidence that shows people burnt to death in their homes. Also<br />contradicted is the US military claim that these bombs did not hit civilians;<br />the photographs plainly show the corpses of women and children. A full,<br />independent inquiry ought to be convened to investigate the matter. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article12227.html<br /><br />~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</div>
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Selves and Others<br />http://www.selvesandothers.org</div>
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<br />~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br />Monday, November 14th, 2005</div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />TomPaine.com<br />Free Trade, Free Guns<br /><br />by Frida Berrigan<br /><br />President George W. Bush's foiled trip to Mar del Plata to attend the Summit<br />of the Americas put Latin America in the spotlight. Bush was hoping to push<br />his controversial free trade agenda, but the trade talks failed and the<br />president was met with violent and widespread protest. Before the spotlight<br />of media attention leaves Latin America, it is essential to underline that<br />Bush's free trade policy has gone hand in hand with rising U.S. military aid,<br />training and arms sales to the region.</div>
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U.S. military aid, training and arms sales to the region have all increased<br />sharply since the beginning of the war on terrorism and threaten to<br />exacerbate conflict, empty national coffers and sidetrack development<br />programs.</div>
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In 2000, U.S. military aid through Foreign Military Financing totaled $4.7<br />billion to more than 100 nations, with an almost microscopic fraction-0.07<br />percent-going to countries in Latin America. By 2006, overall spending on<br />Foreign Military Financing actually decreased to $4.5 billion. But Latin<br />America's share of that total has increased by more than 3,400 percent to<br />$122 million. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051114/free_trade_free_guns.php<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Electronic Intifada<br />Of transplants and transcendence: Questioning social and symbolic categories<br />in Israel<br /><br />by Laurie King-Irani<br /><br />"What is more perplexing and amazing? Four dehumanized individuals blowing<br />themselves and sixty other people to bits, or the wondrous lesson in humanity<br />shown by a family that would not have been blamed for seeking revenge, but<br />who instead repaid murder with magnanimity by donating the organs of their<br />son, a non-Jew, to Israelis? The minds of murderers, whether Jewish,<br />Christian or Muslim; American, Israeli or Arab, are much easier to understand<br />than the actions of Ahmed Khatib's family. Unlike suicide bombers or IDF<br />snipers, Ahmed's family violated the grammar of the conflict and exposed the<br />arbitrariness and barbarity of erecting walls, whether actual or<br />metaphorical, between human beings."<br /><br />-> http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4296.shtml<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />DahrJamailIraq.com<br />Fallujah Revisited<br /><br />by Dahr Jamail<br /><br />Nearly a year after they occurred, a few of the war crimes committed in<br />Fallujah by members of the US military have gained the attention of some<br />major media outlets (excluding, of course, any of the corporate media outlets<br />in the US).</div>
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Back on November 26, 2004, in a story I wrote for the Inter Press Service<br />titled 'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah, refugees from that city described,<br />in detail, various odd weapons used in Fallujah. In addition, they provided<br />detailed descriptions such as "pieces of these bombs exploded into large<br />fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns."</div>
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This was also mentioned in a web log I'd penned nine days before, on November<br />17, 2004, named Slash and Burn where one of the descriptions of these same<br />weapons by the same refugee from Fallujah said, "These exploded on the ground<br />with large fires that burnt for half an hour. They used these near the train<br />tracks. You could hear these dropped from a large airplane and the bombs were<br />the size of a tank. When anyone touched those fires, their body burned for<br />hours."</div>
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On December 9th of 2004 I posted a gallery of photos, many of which are<br />included in the new RAI television documentary about incendiary weapons<br />having been used in Fallujah.</div>
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Like the torture "scandal" of Abu Ghraib that for people in the west didn't<br />become "real" until late April of 2004, Iraqis and journalists in Iraq who<br />engaged in actual reporting knew that US and British forces were torturing<br />Iraqis from nearly the beginning of the occupation, and continue to do so to<br />this day.</div>
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All of this makes me wonder how much longer it will take for other atrocities<br />to come to light. Even just discussing Fallujah, there are many we can choose<br />from. While I'm not the only journalist to have reported on these, let me<br />draw your attention to just a few things that I've recorded which took place<br />in Fallujah during the November, 2004 massacre.</div>
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In my story "Fallujah Refugees Tell of Life and Death in the Kill Zone"<br />published on December 3, 2004 there are many instances of war crimes which<br />will, hopefully, be granted the attention they deserve. (...)<br /><br />-> http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000317.php<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Village Voice<br />Deaths by Torture Don't End Questioning<br /><br />by Ward Harkavy<br /><br />Far from Abu Ghraib, some answers about the Bush regime's conduct are buried<br />at the World Bank</div>
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Why fight it? Let's follow the Pentagon's rules for interrogation at Abu<br />Ghraib. Let's quit hemming and hawing and start unraveling the Bush regime's<br />threads of misconduct.</div>
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And we need to make sure that we round up all the suits, including those at<br />the World Bank.</div>
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While Dick Cheney and the rest of George W. Bush's handlers circle the wagons<br />at the White House, and the vise president's non-gay daughter, Liz Cheney,<br />and her friend Shaha Ali Riza agit the prop over at the State Department,<br />Riza's boyfriend, Paul Wolfowitz, is battening down the hatches at the World<br />Bank. Over at one of the planet's most powerful financial institutions, the<br />chief architect of the Iraq debacle is building a bunker to rival the one he<br />helped construct at the Pentagon.</div>
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The latest speculation inside the World Bank revolves around how long it will<br />be before investigators come knocking on Wolfowitz's newly reinforced doors<br />to quiz him about the Iraq debacle, Abu Ghraib, Plamegate, and other<br />scandals. (...)<br /><br />-> http://villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/002061.php<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />rabble.ca<br />Canada should insist rule of law applies to teen<br /><br />by Linda McQuaig<br /><br />When top White House aide Scooter Libby was indicted for perjury, George W.<br />Bush was quick to point out that "(i)n our system, each individual is<br />presumed innocent and entitled to due process and a fair trial."</div>
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It's reassuring that the president is aware of perhaps the most basic<br />principle in western law: the presumption of innocence and the right to due<br />process.</div>
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But it's disturbing - to say the least - that he only applies it selectively.</div>
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In the name of fighting the "war on terror," the White House has played fast<br />and loose with the principles underpinning western democracy and the rule of<br />law.</div>
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Among other things, it has put terror suspects - including Toronto teen Omar<br />Khadr - beyond the reach of international legal safeguards set out in the<br />Geneva Conventions.</div>
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Khadr, charged with murder by the U.S. military in connection with a 2002<br />firefight in Afghanistan, has been consistently denied legal protections<br />while being held under horrific conditions for three years at the notorious<br />U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=43752<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />ZNet<br />Chomsky Answers Guardian<br /><br />by Noam Chomsky<br /><br />This is an open letter to a few of the people with whom I had discussed the<br />Guardian interview of 31 October, on the basis of the electronic version,<br />which is all that I had seen. Someone has just sent me a copy of the printed<br />version, and I now understand why friends in England who wrote me were so<br />outraged.</div>
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It is a nuisance, and a bit of a bore, to dwell on the topic, and I always<br />keep away from personal attacks on me, unless asked, but in this case the<br />matter has some more general interest, so perhaps it's worth reviewing what<br />most readers could not know. The general interest is that the print version<br />reveals a very impressive effort, which obviously took careful planning and<br />work, to construct an exercise in defamation that is a model of the genre.<br />It's of general interest for that reason alone.</div>
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A secondary matter is that it may serve as a word of warning to anyone who is<br />asked by the Guardian for an interview, and happens to fall slightly to the<br />critical end of the approved range of opinion of the editors. The warning is:<br />if you accept the invitation, be cautious, and make sure to have a tape<br />recorder that is very visibly placed in front of you. That may inhibit the<br />dedication to deceit, and if not, at least you will have a record. I should<br />add that in probably thousands of interviews from every corner of the world<br />and every part of the spectrum for decades, that thought has never occurred<br />to me before. It does now. (...)</div>
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[November 13, 2005]<br /><br />-> http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=9110<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />CounterPunch<br />The Origins of the Guardian's Attack on Chomsky<br />Kulturkrieg in Journalism: Using Emotion to Silence Analysis<br />by Diana Johnstone<br /><br />Last Halloween, The Guardian ran an attack on Noam Chomsky that amazed many<br />readers who had considered The Guardian to be one of Britain's more serious<br />newspapers. The attack took the form of what Alexander Cockburn described in<br />his article on this CounterPunch website as a "showcase interview"--"a<br />showcase for the interviewer's inquisitorial chutzpa". In this art form, the<br />interviewee is simply the prey for the interviewer who plies him with trap<br />questions and then rewrites the whole thing to make him look like an idiot<br />compared to her clever self.</div>
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The interviewer was a young Oxford graduate named Emma Brockes who is making<br />a name for herself in the genre. Ms Brockes obviously had scant familiarity<br />with Chomsky's work. For all one can tell, her sole background preparation<br />for this assignment was an article written by her colleague Ed Vulliamy and<br />published by the Balkan Crisis Report of International War and Peace<br />Reporting (IWPR, an outfit heavily subsidized by NATO governments) on August<br />27, 2004. Vulliamy's article, "We Must Fight for Memory of Bosnia's Camps",<br />calling for monuments to perpetuate the memory of the 1992 Bosnian Serb<br />detention camps which he visited as a reporter (but not, of course, the<br />Muslim and Croat camps which he did not visit), includes an attack on me<br />which is echoed very precisely by Ms Brockes, even to misspelling my name in<br />the same way. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone11142005.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Democracy Now!<br />Did Former Marine Jimmy Massey Lie About U.S. Military Atrocities in Iraq? A<br />Debate Between Massey and Embedded Reporter Ron Harris<br /><br />by Jimmy Massey and Ron Harris<br /><br />Did former U.S, marine Jimmy Massey lie or exaggerate about killing<br />civilians in Iraq to the media? Ron Harris, a reporter embedded with Massey's<br />battalion says Massey's claims are not credible. We host a debate with Massey<br />and Harris.</div>
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Jimmy Massey is a 12-year veteran of the U.S Marine Corps who participated in<br />the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Before going to war, Massey was a Marine<br />recruiter and boot camp drill instructor. But his experiences in Iraq caused<br />him to have a change of heart. After he was honorably discharged in December<br />of 2003 he vehemently spoke out against the war, and help found Iraq Veterans<br />Against the War. Massey also confessed to participating in and witnessing<br />atrocities while in Iraq and these accounts were published in newspapers and<br />magazines across the country.</div>
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Massey also made international headlines in December of 2004 when he<br />testified on behalf of war resister Jeremy Hinzman at a refugee hearing in<br />Canada. At the time, Massey told Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board "I do<br />know that we killed innocent civilians." He then recounted how US forces once<br />fired up to 500 rounds of ammunition into four cars filled with civilians<br />after they failed to stop at a checkpoint. On the next day, he said he<br />witnessed Marines shooting dead four unarmed Iraqi demonstrators. Massey has<br />written an autobiography titled "Kill, Kill, Kill" that was recently<br />published in France.</div>
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Earlier this month, Ron Harris a reporter at the St. Louis Dispatch who was<br />embedded with the Marines, wrote a series of articles claiming that Massey<br />lied or exaggerated his claims. Harris writes that statements from Massey's<br />fellow Marines, Massey's own conflicting accounts and the five journalists<br />who were embedded with Massey's unit, discredit his allegations.</div>
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Following the article by Ron Harris, the editorial page editor of the<br />Sacramento Bee - one of the first newspapers to publish Massey's story in May<br />2004 - says they should have looked more into the credibility of the story.<br />David Holwerk writes, "We should have done more to check the truth of<br />Massey's charges before deciding whether to publish them" he goes on to write<br />that running the story, "raises serious questions about The Bee's<br />performance."</div>
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Meanwhile, columnist Michelle Malkin writes, "Jimmy was Michael Moore, Cindy<br />Sheehan and John Kerry all wrapped up into one tidy, soundbite-friendly<br />package -- a poster boy for peace topped off by a military uniform and<br />tattoos to boot. But like a lot of the agitators who pose as well-meaning,<br />good-faith peace activists, Jimmy Massey was something else: A complete<br />fraud."</div>
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Massey has responded with an article posted on the Web. He sticks by his<br />account of atrocities in Iraq and accuses Ron Harris of retaliating against<br />him for calling attention to what he says was his inaccurate reporting while<br />embedded in Iraq.<br /><br />-> http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/14/1447248<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Japan Focus<br />Family Ties: The Tojo Legacy<br /><br />by David McNeill<br /><br />The granddaughter of Japan's wartime leader Tojo Hideki has become one of<br />his staunchest public defenders since emerging from obscurity a decade ago.<br />But exactly who is she and why has she come in from the political cold?</div>
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Contrary to those who put Tojo in the small club of World War 2 monsters<br />along with Hitler and Mussolini, she says the man who ordered the Pearl<br />Harbor attack led a "war of freedom" in Asia. "He was defending his country<br />against foreign aggressors. His greatest crime was that he loved his<br />country."</div>
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In another time or place, Ms. Tojo might be considered a harmless relic, or<br />have opted to remain living anonymously under her real name, Iwanami Toshie.<br />But 60 years after the end of World War II, this tiny woman with impeccable<br />manners and the air of a retired school teacher is one of the most toxic<br />figures in a growing historical revisionist movement that is again pulling<br />Asia apart. (...)</div>
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[November 10, 2005]<br /><br />-> http://japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=445<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Democracy Now!<br />LA Times Fires Longtime Progressive Columnist Robert Scheer<br /><br />by Robert Scheer<br /><br />The Los Angeles Times newspaper last week announced that it was firing<br />longtime columnist Robert Scheer. Scheer has been at the Times for 30 years<br />and was one of the most progressive voices at the paper. In recent years, his<br />columns took on the Bush Administration and its justifications for the<br />invasion of Iraq.</div>
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Last week, the Los Angeles Times Newspaper announced that it was firing<br />longtime columnist Robert Scheer. Scheer has been at the Times for 30 years<br />and was one of the most progressive voices at the paper. In recent years, his<br />columns took on the Bush Administration and its justifications for the<br />invasion of Iraq. Scheer believes that his firing was because of ideological<br />reasons.</div>
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In a posting at the Huffington Post blog, he wrote "The publisher Jeff<br />Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told<br />people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to<br />my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq.<br />Fortunately sixty percent of Americans now get the point but only after tens<br />of thousand of Americans and Iraqis have been killed and maimed as the<br />carnage spirals out of control. My only regret is that my pen was not sharper<br />and my words tougher."</div>
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The Times also fired Michael Ramirez, a Pulitzer-Prize winning conservative<br />staff cartoonist.<br /><br />-> http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/14/1447244<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />UK Watch<br />UKWatch Interview with Eric Herring - Part One<br /><br />by Alex Doherty and Eric Herring<br /><br />The following is an interview with Dr Eric Herring, senior lecturer in<br />international relations at the University of Bristol. Dr Herring is co-author<br />of Iraq in Fragments: The Occupation and Its Legacy' (2005), and a<br />co-founder of NASPIR - the Network of Activist Scholars of Politics and<br />International Relations. He is an advisor to UKWatch.</div>
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Alex Doherty: You've written a lot about sanctions era Iraq, what kind of<br />state was the country in before the Anglo/American invasion?</div>
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Eric Herring: That's worth looking at a number of levels. One of the things<br />the Americans hoped for when they moved in was that they would effectively<br />inherit a functioning state. The Americans actually believed that when they<br />invaded they would be able to install Chalabi as the new prime minister, that<br />the Iraqi people would turn out to applaud and throw flowers, and that there<br />would be an army, a police force and a functioning bureaucracy.</div>
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The reality of the Iraqi state before the invasion was, you could use the<br />phrase, that it was very external to society. Meaning that society had very,<br />very low loyalty to it. It had very low loyalty to it because this was a<br />dictatorial state that could rely on revenue sources - it didn't actually<br />need to rely on the people that much. Another aspect of it was what is known<br />as the shadow state' - where, especially under the sanctions, aside from the<br />formal state structures there were the real networks that actually ran<br />things, that were loyal personally to Saddam. Of course it wasn't just the<br />Ba'ath party but also these more personal networks that existed alongside the<br />state. And what it meant was that the state itself had been hollowed out by<br />Saddam's power manoeuvrings and his efforts to deal with the sanctions and so<br />it was a state that did not have popular loyalty. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.ukwatch.net/article/1187<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Foreign Policy In Focus<br />Libby Indictment May Open Door to Broader Iraq War Deceptions<br /><br />by Stephen Zunes<br /><br />The details revealed thus far from the investigation that led to the<br />five-count indictment against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby seem to indicate that<br />the efforts to expose the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame<br />Wilson went far beyond the chief assistant to the assistant chief. Though no<br />other White House officials were formally indicted, the investigation appears<br />to implicate Vice President Richard Cheney and Karl Rove, President George W.<br />Bush's top political adviser, in the conspiracy. More importantly, the probe<br />underscores the extent of administration efforts to silence those who<br />questioned its argument that Iraq constituted a serious threat to the<br />national security of the United States. Even if no other White House<br />officials ever have to face justice as a result of this investigation, it<br />opens one of the best opportunities the American public may have to press the<br />issue of how the Bush administration led us into war.</div>
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Spurred by the Libby indictment, the Downing Street memo, and related British<br />documents leaked earlier this year, some mainstream pundits and Democratic<br />Party lawmakers are finally raising the possibility that the Bush<br />administration was determined to go to war regardless of any strategic or<br />legal justification and that White House officials deliberately exaggerated<br />the threats posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq in order to gain congressional and<br />popular support to invade that oil-rich country. Democratic Senate leader<br />Harry Reid stated for the first time on October 28, the day of the<br />indictment, that the charges raise questions about "misconduct at the White<br />House" in the period leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq that must be<br />addressed by President Bush, including "how the Bush White House manufactured<br />and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq<br />and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president."</div>
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Indeed, even prior to the return of United Nations inspectors in December<br />2002 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq four months later, it is hard to<br />understand how anyone could have taken seriously the administration's claims<br />that Iraq was somehow a grave national security threat to the United States.<br />And, despite assertions by administration apologists that "everybody" thought<br />Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction<br />(WMD) and an advanced nuclear program immediately prior to the March 2003<br />invasion, the record shows that such claims were strongly contested, even<br />within the U.S. government. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/2925<br /><br /></div>
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Aftershock Looms For Substance Abuse in Gulf Coast<br /><br />by Valerie Kremer<br /><br />As the focus of relief efforts of Hurricane Katrina shifts from crisis mode<br />to examining short-term stability and rebuilding, substance abuse has fallen<br />under the radar, making thousands of residents uneasy about the future of a<br />now exacerbated addiction problem. Inadequate funding and scarce resources<br />are at the top of the list of obstacles for addiction-focused health care<br />professionals, counselors, and those providing substance abuse services. The<br />most alarming realization is that the worst is yet to come. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article12204.html<br /><br /></div>
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Declarations of Independance<br /><br />by Muhammed Asadi<br /><br />A common argument used by the supporters of U.S. hegemony in the world, runs<br />as follows: the U.S. as a human society has "human" shortcomings, the faults<br />that every person displays, it might not be perfect (they say) but it is<br />still "better" than most other societies around the globe. There are several<br />problems with this line of argumentation. First, it erroneously assumes that<br />societies are mere sums of individuals that inhabit them, problems of<br />societal structure might not be problems of individual members that inhabit<br />that structures. Such reasoning confuses public issues, things that have to<br />do with social structure and institutions that transcend individuals, with<br />personal troubles of individual character. Take the example of marriage:<br />Inside a marital relationship, personal problems might exist between the<br />couple which may lead to divorce, but when almost half of all marriages<br />attempted end in divorce in a society, it has to do with the social<br />institution of marriage and family, how it is changing and how other<br />institutions are affecting or causing such change, in short it is a issue<br />involving social structure. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article12202.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />San Francisco Bay View<br />Attacks on the poor in Martissant and Gran Ravine<br />Little Machete Army,' police collaborators, suspected of resuming terror<br />campaign<br />by Lyn Duff<br /><br />On Oct. 26, a group of armed men assaulted civilians in the Martissant and<br />Gran Ravine areas of Port-au-Prince, the latest in a series of targeted<br />attacks on the two neighborhoods, which are heavily populated and<br />impoverished and known to be sympathetic to the pro-democracy movement.</div>
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It was just after 9 p.m. in the evening when a group of about 20 armed men<br />began shooting into the central market in Gran Ravine. One witness says the<br />shooters "picked off" one or two people, before "riddling" the area with<br />bullets.</div>
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Shortly after, a family was assaulted in their home, purportedly by the same<br />group, a community leader told the Bay View. (...)</div>
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[November 02, 2005]<br /><br />-> http://www.sfbayview.com/110205/attacks110205.shtml<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />New Statesman<br />Why Blair backs a brutal regime<br /><br />by Michela Wrong<br /><br />A regime hailed as progressive by Tony Blair has shot women and children in<br />the streets and detained thousands</div>
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Watching western governments engage with Africa is like watching a doctor<br />trying to bully a perfectly sane individual into a straitjacket. "It's for<br />your own good," smiles the doctor. "You'll thank me in the end." For a while<br />the man allows himself to be coaxed, until, registering the implications, he<br />scatters his minders with a few well-aimed blows and heads for the open air.</div>
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The chasm of understanding between supposed benefactor and reluctant patient<br />has been at its most gaping in the Horn of Africa this week. In the Ethiopian<br />capital, a regime that has been hailed by Tony Blair as an example of<br />progressive African government has shot women and children in the streets,<br />detained thousands, and rounded up the opposition leaders who accuse it, with<br />ample justification, of rigging elections in May. Embarrassingly, the forces<br />involved in these abuses were trained by British police officers, at British<br />taxpayers' expense.</div>
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At Ethiopia's border with Eritrea, in the meantime, troops and armour are<br />massing on both sides in possible preparation for a war over a badly defined<br />colonial frontier. A new conflict, which might allow the leaders of each<br />nation to rally evaporating domestic support, would undoubtedly claim more<br />lives than the 90,000 lost in the 1998-2000 war. (...)</div>
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[page 22 | columns]<br /><br />-> http://www.newstatesman.com/200511140011<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />New Statesman<br />Colonialism in the Paris suburbs<br />Suburban Paris has been treated as if it were a far-flung colony to be easily<br />ignored<br />by Darcus Howe<br /><br />What strikes me about the historic events unfolding in France is that those<br />in authority are behaving like rabbits caught in the headlights, stunned by<br />the depth and range of the revolt. They offer nothing constructive - only a<br />curfew (Jacques Chirac) and descriptions of the insurrectionists as "scum"<br />(Nicolas Sarkozy).</div>
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The Daily Mail's Melanie Phillips would have us believe that the youth of the<br />French suburbs have been stirred to insurrection by some obscure mullah who<br />wants an autonomous Islamic state within the borders of France. The<br />television pictures showing the participants in the revolt defy this<br />nonsense.</div>
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We are told by others that the French model of integration has failed. Yet<br />the French state has never in the past 25 years enunciated a model through<br />which immigrant communities may develop. If there was a policy at all, it was<br />one of neglect. At first immigrants came as seasonal labour, and it seemed to<br />the French authorities that there was no possibility of permanent settlement.<br />It was labour at its cheapest: there was no expenditure on servicing families<br />and only makeshift housing. (...)</div>
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[page 28 | columns]<br /><br />-> http://www.newstatesman.com/200511140014<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Telegraph<br />'Army wanted an officer on trial over Iraq. They picked my husband'<br /><br />by Thomas Harding<br /><br />The wife of an Army colonel facing court martial over the death of an Iraqi<br />in his regiment's custody says he was charged because Army chiefs and<br />politicians wanted officers on trial alongside their men.</div>
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Louise Mendonca, speaking out for the first time in her 41-year-old husband<br />Jorge's defence, writes in The Daily Telegraph today that she feels "impelled<br />to speak now for the sake of my future sanity and my marriage". (...)<br /><br />-><br />http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/14/nmend14.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/14/ixnewstop.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Black Commentator<br />What's the Matter with What's the Matter with Kansas<br />Why Liberal Whites Worry Black Progressives<br />by Tyrone Simpson<br /><br />Frank's misperception of race relations in his home state particularly<br />stings at the viscera because it attempts to write black grievances only out<br />of the cultural war.</div>
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The most compelling evidence that half of the nation's electorate has raised<br />arms against the other in what author Thomas Frank refers to as "The Great<br />Backlash" comes not necessarily from pop pundits hired to encourage the<br />revolt like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, but from the testimony of a less<br />polished commentator like John Rocker, the once brazen Atlanta Braves relief<br />pitcher who was impelled by a heated sports rivalry to voice the rage<br />ostensibly responsible for the ascendancy of our present president. In a 1999<br />interview with a Sports Illustrated reporter, Rocker made clear that his<br />antipathy toward the New York Mets went beyond the distaste that develops<br />between athletic antagonists to a complete revulsion for his opponents'<br />sponsoring city and the degenerate culture that it fostered and contained.<br />(...)</div>
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[November 10 2005 | Issue 158]<br /><br />-> http://www.blackcommentator.com/158/158_think_race_and_kansas_simpson.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />Riots are a class act - and often they're the only alternative<br /><br />by Gary Younge<br /><br />France now accepts the need for social justice. No petition, peaceful march<br />or letter to an MP could have achieved this</div>
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'If there is no struggle, there is no progress," said the African American<br />abolitionist Frederick Douglass. "Those who profess to favour freedom and yet<br />depreciate agitation are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground;<br />they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the<br />awful roar of its many waters ... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It<br />never did and it never will."</div>
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By the end of last week it looked as though the fortnight of struggle between<br />minority French youth and the police might actually have yielded some<br />progress. Condemning the rioters is easy. They shot at the police, killed an<br />innocent man, trashed businesses, rammed a car into a retirement home, and<br />torched countless cars (given that 400 cars are burned on an average New<br />Year's Eve in France, this was not quite as remarkable as some made out).<br />(...)</div>
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[page 31 | Comment & Debate]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1641867,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />New Statesman<br />America's new enemy<br /><br />by John Pilger<br /><br />Latin Americans have spent the past few years finding their voices. Now they<br />may have the strength to defy their northern neighbour.</div>
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I was dropped at Paradiso, the last middle-class area before La Vega barrio,<br />which spills into a ravine as if by the force of gravity. Storms were<br />forecast and people were anxious, remembering the mudslides of 1999 that took<br />20,000 lives. "Why are you here?" asked the man sitting opposite me in the<br />packed jeep-bus that chugged up the hill. Like so many in Latin America, he<br />appeared old, but wasn't. Without waiting for my answer, he listed why he<br />supported President Hugo Chavez: schools, clinics, affordable food, "our<br />constitution, our democracy" and "for the first time, the oil money is going<br />to us". I asked him if he belonged to the MVR (Movement for the Fifth<br />Republic), Chavez's party, "No, I've never been in a political party; I can<br />only tell you how my life has been changed, as I never dreamt."</div>
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It is raw witness like this, which I have heard over and over again in<br />Venezuela, that smashes the one-way mirror between the west and a continent<br />that is rising. By rising, I mean the phenomenon of millions of people<br />stirring once again, "like lions after slumber/In unvanquishable number",<br />wrote Shelley in The Mask of Anarchy. This is not romantic; an epic is<br />unfolding in Latin America that demands our attention beyond the stereotypes<br />and cliches that diminish whole societies to their degree of exploitation and<br />expendability. (...)</div>
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[pages 12-14 | cover story]<br /><br />-> http://www.newstatesman.com/nscoverstory.htm<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />US on sidelines as Latin American voters prepare to redraw continent<br /><br />by Dan Glaister<br /><br />There was a telling moment during the Mar del Plata summit of the Americas<br />in Argentina earlier this month. As the 34 leaders walked to the seaside spot<br />chosen for their group photograph, they chatted and joked among themselves.<br />But while they strolled in groups, one leader walked alone: the US president.</div>
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George Bush's isolation was more than symbolic. It was borne out by the<br />failure of the summit to rubberstamp the US-backed creation of a south<br />American trade zone. Both President Bush's isolation and the failure of the<br />latest US-inspired trade plan for the continent highlight a question<br />preoccupying US policy-makers and Latin American leaders: is the region<br />drifting away from the influence of its northern neighbour?</div>
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Between now and the end of 2006, 11 presidential elections will be held in<br />Latin America. The political changes and challenges that ensue could see a<br />continent redrawn. (...)</div>
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[page 25 | International]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1642089,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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Criminal State<br />The Coup - 1963<br />by Christian Mohn<br /><br />People who were born in the United States before the year 1963 are living in<br />a different country than those born after 1963. The Criminal State was<br />formally ushered in that year with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The<br />subsequent political acts that have followed, be they wars on foreign soil or<br />the final removal of democracy from a hollowed-out republic could be<br />considered as stemming from that event. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article12188.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />Iraq's president predicts troops out next year<br /><br />by Richard Norton-Taylor<br /><br />Talabani suggests British handover by end of 2006</div>
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UK defence secretary more cautious on pullout</div>
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The Iraqi president predicted yesterday that Iraqi troops could replace<br />British soldiers in the country by the end of next year, in what is the most<br />optimistic assessment yet of the ability of his own forces to take<br />responsibility for the security of the country.</div>
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Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader running for re-election next month, said:<br />"We don't want British forces forever in Iraq. Within one year, I think at<br />the end of 2006, Iraqi troops will be ready to replace British forces in the<br />south."</div>
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General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the army, said Mr Talabani's prediction<br />of a British departure by the end of 2006 was "well within the range of what<br />is realistically possible". However, a senior British defence source,<br />speaking on condition he would not be named, described the president's<br />remarks as being made "more in hope than expectation".</div>
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John Reid, the defence secretary, was also more cautious. He insisted: "We<br />will stay in Iraq until the job is done." But he added: "That job will be<br />done when the Iraqis themselves are capable of taking their own security into<br />their own hands, and that handover is something that could begin in parts of<br />Iraq in the course of the next year."</div>
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Privately, British and American commanders in Iraq are concerned about the<br />lack of progress in building up a national Iraqi security and police force, a<br />problem compounded by the infiltration of the Iraqi police by Shia militia in<br />British-controlled southern Iraq. (...)</div>
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[page 17 | International]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1641763,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Independent<br />Iraqi President says British troops could pull out next year<br /><br />by Kim Sengupta<br /><br />in Baghdad</div>
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British troops could leave Iraq in just over a year, the country's President,<br />Jalal Talabani, said in the clearest indication yet of a timetable for<br />withdrawal from the conflict.</div>
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Mr Talabani's statement yesterday was immediately backed by Britain's<br />Secretary of State for Defence, John Reid, and General Sir Mike Jackson, the<br />head of the Army, as a feasible exit schedule.</div>
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The timescale tallies with contingency plans drawn up by the Ministry of<br />Defence for extracting the British force of about 8,000 from Iraq as the<br />military prepares for greater commitment in Afghanistan. (...)<br /><br />-> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article326899.ece<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />Depleted force ill at ease over Iraq war<br /><br />by Audrey Gillan<br /><br />Civilians who signed up to serve in the TA speak for the first time about<br />why they have handed in their kit for good</div>
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Former Territorial Army soldiers have spoken out about how the Iraq war has<br />compelled them to leave the service. An average of 500 men and women a month<br />have left since October 2003, causing a crisis for both the TA and the<br />regular army, which it increasingly supports.</div>
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Speaking to the Guardian, the former part-time soldiers gave a wide range of<br />reasons for leaving - from financial, to family, to frustration, to lack of<br />medical or mental health treatment - but Iraq was the key factor. More than a<br />quarter of the total required force has resigned - 13,400 - since April 2003.</div>
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The current strength of the TA is 35,500, the lowest since it was founded in<br />1907. The required strength is 41,610. The problem, it seems, from those<br />tracked down by the Guardian, is with retention of personnel rather than<br />recruitment, though a £3m television advertising campaign brought in fewer<br />than 600 candidates.</div>
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The TA supplies about 10% of the British forces in Iraq: 1,350 reservists<br />have been mobilised for a second tour and 775 are currently serving in Iraq.<br />Five members of the TA have died in Iraq since the invasion and many more<br />have been seriously injured. Two TA soldiers are suing the Ministry of<br />Defence for medical negligence after what they claim was a lack of treatment<br />when they returned home. (...)</div>
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[pages 8 - 9 | UK News]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1642038,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />Senate vote to cut Guantánamo Bay prisoner rights faces challenge<br /><br />by Gary Younge<br /><br />Decision denies detainees access to federal courts</div>
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Democrat vows to stand by founding principles of US</div>
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The US senate's decision to deny detainees at Guantánamo Bay the right to<br />challenge their detention in a US court could be overturned this week,<br />following protests from senators, civil rights groups and former military<br />officers.</div>
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The senate voted 49-42 on Thursday to effectively reverse a 2004 supreme<br />court decision that extended the writ of habeas corpus to prisoners in the US<br />military camp in Cuba. The debate took less than an hour and the measure was<br />tacked on to a bill on the military budget.</div>
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Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator, argued that his proposal was intended<br />"to correct the balance", causing terror suspects to be treated as "enemy<br />combatants" rather than as potential criminal defendants.</div>
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"For 200 years, ladies and gentlemen, in the law of armed conflict, no nation<br />has given an enemy combatant, a terrorist, an al-Qaida member, the ability to<br />go into every federal court in this United States and sue the people that are<br />fighting the war for us," Mr Graham told the senate.</div>
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In an interview with Knight Ridder, Mr Graham later added: "We've been<br />chicken, to be honest, but now we're trying to bring some clarity to the<br />legal confusion." (...)</div>
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[page 24 | International]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1641803,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />Ethnic minority youngsters getting better jobs, study says<br /><br />by Mian Ridge<br /><br />Young people from ethnic minority families are transcending Britain's class<br />system and beating their working class white peers into well-paid jobs,<br />according to a report.</div>
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New generations of Indian, Chinese, Caribbean and African families are<br />sailing ahead in the employment market, largely thanks to the encouragement<br />of their parents, research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has<br />found.</div>
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People from Indian working class families are the most successful, said<br />Lucinda Platt, from the University of Essex, who tracked the employment of<br />140,000 people in England and Wales over 30 years from the 1960s.</div>
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Using data from the Office for National Statistics, she found that 56% of<br />people from Indian working class families took up professional or managerial<br />roles in adulthood, while only 43% of those from white, non-immigrant<br />families went into such jobs. Among youngsters from Caribbean families, the<br />figure was 45 %.</div>
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Ms Platt suggested it was the tendency of migrant parents to encourage and<br />expect their children to do well at school that lay behind the success of<br />these groups when it came to getting jobs. (...)</div>
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[page 13 | UK News]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1641952,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />Call for free condoms to combat spread of HIV in prisons<br /><br />by Eric Allison and Paul Lewis<br /><br />Prisoners should be supplied with free condoms and given access to a<br />needle-exchange system in an effort to combat soaring rates of hepatitis C<br />and HIV among inmates, a report says today.</div>
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The study, published by the Prison Reform Trust and the National Aids Trust,<br />reveals that rates of hepatitis C and HIV in prisons are 20 times and 15<br />times higher respectively than in the public.</div>
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The survey of prison healthcare managers across the UK found a third of<br />prisons had no HIV policy, one in five had no hepatitis C policy and more<br />than half had no sexual health policy. Prison healthcare, the report authors<br />say, is "substandard" and many prisoners have no access to condoms,<br />disinfecting tablets, clean needles or healthcare information.</div>
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The director of the Prison Reform Trust, Juliet Lyons, said: "Courts sentence<br />people to custody not to inadequate healthcare, but the prison population is<br />marked by poor health. (...)</div>
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[page 16 | UK News]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1641838,00.html<br /><br />~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</div>
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<br />~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br />Wednesday, November 9th, 2005</div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Iraq Analysis Group<br />Fire Bombs in Iraq: Napalm By Any Other Name<br /><br />by Iraq Analysis Group<br /><br />NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: The following briefing regarding the use of the<br />incendiary weapon MK-77 was first published in March of 2005. It is again<br />presented due to current articles talking about the use of incendiary devises<br />by the US military.</div>
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Iraq Analysis Group (March 2005)</div>
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Summary</div>
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This briefing examines the continuing use of incendiary weapons ("napalm") by<br />the US military in Iraq. While the UK government has attempted to downplay or<br />deny the use of incendiaries in Iraq, US officials have been forced to admit<br />using the MK-77 incendiary, a modern form of napalm. The UK is party to an<br />international convention banning such weapons where they may cause harm to<br />civilians. In Iraq, UK forces are part of a coalition which does not adhere<br />to internationally agreed standards of warfare. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article9437.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Electronic Iraq<br />Cold Comfort<br /><br />by Greg Rollins<br /><br />"The driver is afraid," our Iraqi friend said, "but I guarantee that by the<br />end of the day his opinion will have changed." The driver was nervous about<br />going to Fallujah, a city that the Multinational Forces have attacked heavily<br />over past couple years. The driver believed that the people in Fallujah<br />(Sunni Muslims) were all fanatics, militants, supporters of Saddam. Still,<br />the driver went with a couple members from CPT and several Iraqis from Muslim<br />Peacemaker Teams who wanted to talk to people from Fallujah. After the driver<br />had been there for the day, he was shocked that the people from Fallujah were<br />nothing like he expected.</div>
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All cultures or countries demonize people. It is racist and dangerous, but in<br />Iraq it is especially precarious. It contributes a lot to the already intense<br />violence that paralyzes the country. Many Iraqis write each other off by<br />sayings things like "They are not educated... they are poor... they are from<br />the north...from the south...they are Sunni...Shi'a...Kurdish...Palestinian."<br />The list goes on. (...)<br /><br />-> http://electroniciraq.net/news/2191.shtml<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />In These Times<br />Islam Needs Radicals<br /><br />by Mark LeVine<br /><br />George W. Bush. Tony Blair. Silvio Berlusconi. Jacques Chirac. Along with<br />most every Western leader, pundit and policymaker, they are frantically<br />searching for the "moderate Muslims" who can save Islam from itself and<br />improve relations with the West.</div>
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The problem is that there's no such thing as a moderate Muslim, at least the<br />way these decision makers define the term. Look at whom they call moderate:<br />President Bush often cites Jordan's King Abdullah and Morocco's King Muhammad<br />as the epitome of modern, moderate Muslim leaders. But a glance at the<br />Amnesty International reports on their countries, or those of other so-called<br />moderate regimes, reveals them to be anything but moderate in the way they<br />treat their citizens. In fact, their level of repression and censorship for<br />the most part is equal to or greater than at any time since 9/11. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2378/<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Democracy Now!<br />Robert Fisk on Torture: "We Have Become the Criminals...We Have No Further<br />Moral Cause to Fight For"<br /><br />by Amy Goodman and Robert Fisk<br /><br />We speak with veteran war correspondent Robert Fisk of the London Independent<br />about the U.S. abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and rendition to<br />other countries as well as the role of journalists in a time of war.<br /><br />-> http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/09/1538226<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Democracy Now!<br />The Roots of Civil Unrest in Europe: Robert Fisk and Behzad Yaghmaian on<br />Post-Colonial Muslim and Arab Immigrants<br /><br />by Amy Goodman, Behzad Yaghmaian and Robert Fisk<br /><br />As the civil unrest in France approaches the end of the second week, we look<br />back at a critical moment in French history that is still being felt today:<br />the country's colonial rule of the North African nation of Algeria. We speak<br />with British journalist Robert Fisk about the French rule of Algeria and the<br />country's war of independence and with Iranian-born author and professor<br />Behzad Yaghmaian, who spent two years traveling in the Middle East and Europe<br />following migrants from Muslim countries.<br /><br />-> http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/09/1538216<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />CounterPunch<br />Blair Defeated on Terror Laws<br />A Despised Leader Suffers His First Loss<br />by Tariq Ali<br /><br />For the first time since he was elected Prime Minister in 1997, Tony Blair<br />was just defeated in a vote in the British Parliament. The issue was the<br />so-called 'war against terrorism'. Blair had insisted that the police be<br />given extra powers to hold people in detention for 90 days before being<br />charged and brought before a court. These were the laws of apartheid South<br />Africa. These were the laws of 'preventive detention' enforced by the British<br />Empire in the colonies. These were the laws Blair wanted to apply to British<br />citizens. Forgotten was habeas corpus and the rights of the 'free-born<br />Englishman.' Even the Conservative Party, which has slavishly supported Blair<br />on Iraq, regarded this as an unwarranted and unnecessary display of<br />authoritarianism. And enough Labour Members of Parliament voted against their<br />leader to reject Blair's measures by 322 votes to 291--a bigger than expected<br />majority of 31. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.counterpunch.org/tariq11092005.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />TomPaine.com<br />Why Paris Is Burning<br /><br />by Mark LeVine<br /><br />Americans should be very concerned about the violence that has swept across<br />France the last two weeks. The riots, and the deeper problems they have laid<br />bare, are a microcosm of the larger struggles of Muslims across the Muslim<br />majority world to integrate into a globalized order from which they have been<br />marginalized for decades, even centuries.</div>
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While unusual in their scope, the riots are in not unprecedented. A similar<br />"intifada of the cities" broke out 15 years ago in response to the same<br />conditions in the banlieues, or suburban ghettos, where a lack of educational<br />and employment opportunities and dismal housing conditions created, in the<br />words of then-Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, a "reign of soft terror" that left<br />young people with little choice but "to revolt."</div>
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The state could maintain its policy of trying to keep the order while<br />band-aiding the endemic problems, but for how long? (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051109/why_paris_is_burning.php<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />CounterPunch<br />Rage in the Banlieue<br />Paris is Burning<br />by Diana Johnstone<br /><br />Montmartre, Paris.</div>
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The furious youth in the French suburban housing blocks known as the banlieue<br />are expressing themselves by setting cars on fire. And not only cars:<br />schools, creches, sports centers. So far, they are not using words, at least<br />not audibly. So everyone else is free to speak for them, or against them, and<br />offer his or her verbal interpretation of what these actions mean, or should<br />mean. Since these interpretations differ sharply, there is a polarizing<br />debate going on as to what this is really about and what should be done about<br />it. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone11092005.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Democracy Now!<br />As France Uses Colonial-Era Law To Impose Curfews, a Look at the Plight of<br />Immigrant Youth in Europe<br /><br />by Julia Wright and Naima Bouteldja<br /><br />The French government has declared a state of emergency in response to the<br />youth-led uprising that began nearly two weeks ago, and has spread to over<br />300 towns and cities across the country as well as Brussels and Berlin. We go<br />to Paris to speak with French-born journalist Naima Bouteldja and<br />French-American activist Julia Wright about how the current civil unrest is<br />rooted in decades of social discrimination.</div>
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Under the emergency laws, the government can implement curfews, carry out<br />house searches and ban public meetings. The French newspaper Le Monde<br />criticized the government's decision to invoke laws that were originally<br />drawn up 50 years ago to quell the independence movement in the former French<br />colony of Algeria. The paper's editors wrote "exhuming a 1955 law sends to<br />the youth of the suburbs a message of astonishing brutality: that after 50<br />years France intends to treat them exactly as it did their grandparents." One<br />of the last blanket curfews in Paris was imposed solely on Algerians in 1961.<br />This led to mass protests and a severe crackdown by the French police. On<br />October 17. 1961 police killed as many 200 pro-independence Algerians in what<br />is now known as the Paris Massacre. Police were accused of throwing Algerian<br />demonstrators into the River Seine after they had been beaten unconscious.</div>
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Over the past two weeks the police have not resorted to such force but there<br />have been mass arrests. Since the uprising began police have detained more<br />than 1,500 people, many of them of Arab or African descent. In recent days<br />over 300 towns and cities have been affected by the unrest including the<br />Belgian city of Brussels and the German city of Berlin. On Tuesday night,<br />youths threw firebombs at police and set cars ablaze in the French city of<br />Toulouse just as Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was visiting the area.<br />Over the past two weeks an estimated 6,000 cars have been set ablaze.<br /><br />-> http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/09/1538211<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Ha'aretz<br />Encircling Ramallah: The IDF tars a road<br /><br />by Amira Hass<br /><br />The bisecting that Israel is carrying out undermines natural economic ties,<br />without which any talk of development is an act of deception.</div>
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Tarring a road, building an elevated traffic island as a lane divider,<br />leveling an area and cleaning it - there is no reason for these to take up a<br />single line in the newspaper. Tarring a road, as common sense would have it,<br />means using taxpayers' money for their benefit, a service that goes without<br />saying, that is part of the ongoing contract between citizens and the<br />authorities.</div>
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But when this tarring takes place on a road north of Bir Zeit, and the one<br />executing it is the Israel Defense Forces, which also grabbed under GOC order<br />dozens of dunams belonging to several Palestinian families, and commandeered<br />one family's home in its absence, then we're dealing with an ongoing contract<br />of another sort. It is a contract between the state authorities and the<br />Jewish citizens of Israel which permits them to use Palestinian land and<br />property to the detriment of the Palestinian public.</div>
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The tarring is under way right now, and it deserves more than a line in the<br />paper. But the problem is that even 50 lines, and even were these to appear<br />on the front page, would not put a stop to this evil plunder. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=643181<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />Europe faces 'fear of all things foreign'<br /><br />by Simon Tisdall<br /><br />Watching the French riots with a mixture of trepidation and schadenfreude,<br />Europe's rulers have arrived at two conclusions. One is that the violence is<br />a peculiarly French affair, the product of colour blind republicanism and<br />bungling by an out-of-touch elite. The other is it will not happen here. Both<br />conclusions are questionable.</div>
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"The conditions in France are different from the ones we have here - we don't<br />have giant apartment blocks," said Germany's foreign affairs adviser Wolfgang<br />Schäuble. Appearing to blame French police tactics, Tony Blair said Britain<br />was different, too. When opposition leader Romano Prodi suggested Italy could<br />be next, he was accused of being alarmist.</div>
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But problems of discrimination, youth unemployment - half of the detained<br />French rioters are under 18 - racial prejudice, religious intolerance, and<br />xenophobia induced by fear of terrorism and globalisation are entrenched in<br />most European countries, said Aurore Wanlin of the Centre for European<br />Reform. And they have potential to cause more explosions. (...)</div>
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[page 17 | International]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldbriefing/story/0,15205,1637289,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />France is clinging to an ideal that's been pickled into dogma<br />Britain is in no position to lecture, but the French model of colour-blind<br />integration gives racism a free hand<br />by Jonathan Freedland<br /><br />Paris is in flames and it's more than a city which is burning. The<br />presidency of Jacques Chirac, already battered, is being consumed before our<br />eyes. The French political class, shaken by the No vote in May's referendum<br />on the European constitution and the rejection of the Paris bid for the 2012<br />Olympic Games, is feeling the ground tremble. Not since 1968 has there been<br />such a widespread and sustained challenge to the French state.</div>
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But the greatest threat of all is to an idea, one that has held firm since<br />the first days of the Republic. If that idea is now shrivelling in the flames<br />of Lille and Toulouse, the heat will be felt far beyond France: it will reach<br />even here.</div>
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The riots themselves are not hard to fathom; several French commentators have<br />said the only mystery is why they didn't break out 15 years earlier. If you<br />corral hundreds of thousands of the poor and disadvantaged into sink estates<br />and suburbs in a misery doughnut around the city, expose them to unemployment<br />rates of up to 40%, and then subject them to daily racial discrimination at<br />the hands of employers and the police, you can hardly expect peace and<br />tranquillity. Cut public spending on social programmes by 20% and you will<br />guarantee an explosion. All you have to do is light the fuse. (...)</div>
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[page 31 | Comment & Debate]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1637189,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Guardian<br />Don't be duped by yet another dodgy dossier<br /><br />by Gareth Peirce<br /><br />MPs should resist the stampede to allow 90-day detentions and look at what<br />police did or did not do to stop the 7/7 attacks</div>
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Any MPs who hold misgivings about supporting an invasion on the basis of a<br />dossier later discovered to have been utterly misleading ought now to be<br />demanding a proper, transparent investigation into what the police did and<br />did not do that might have prevented the bombings in London of July 7; and<br />they ought to treat with extreme caution the "dossiers" prepared to support<br />90-day detentions.</div>
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The leader of the opposition, in the immediate aftermath of the bombings,<br />asked for just such an inquiry. Were that to have been conducted, the present<br />stampede, with justifications for numbers of days of detention plucked out of<br />the air, could not possibly be happening. While some reports have hinted at<br />police incompetence and failure to arrest those involved in advance of the<br />bombings, these are likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. A far-reaching<br />inquiry might well show that not one second of additional time for<br />interrogations would have been needed to redress a complete failure to use<br />any of the powers already in police hands. All that is needed is for MPs to<br />say: "Pause for a moment, let us have a proper, truthful explanation."</div>
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As a starting point for its justification, the police dossier revisits the<br />ricin case, in which a number of innocent men were acquitted - an outcome<br />intensely disliked by the police. Now they claim that had they had 90 days,<br />or perhaps 29, or maybe 19, the outcome would have been very different, and<br />that "the suspect who fled the country while on bail and who eventually<br />proved to have been a prime conspirator would have stood trial in this<br />country". The police held that suspect for two days. It was their decision to<br />release him. Where does the need for 90 days come from? (...)</div>
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[page 32 | Comment & Debate]<br /><br />-> http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1637162,00.html<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />World Socialist Web Site<br />Iraq murder court-martial collapses<br /><br />by Niall Green<br /><br />The court-martial of seven British soldiers accused of murdering an<br />18-year-old Iraqi man has collapsed. The trial judge ruled that there was<br />insufficient evidence for proceedings to continue.</div>
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So unserious was the British military's treatment of the alleged murder that<br />the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Judge Advocate General Jeff Blackett,<br />presiding at the trial, criticised the Royal Military Police Special<br />Investigation Branch (SIB), which was in charge of investigating the<br />incident, for making "serious omissions" in their investigation.</div>
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Blackett stated that the Military Police had failed to search for hospital<br />records related to the case and had not established whether there was a<br />register in which the deceased's burial may be recorded. The SIB negligence<br />included delays in interviewing witnesses and defendants. The British army<br />investigators also failed to take crucial DNA samples or take possession of<br />the deceased's clothes before evidence on them became tainted. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/iraq-n09.shtml<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Independent<br />US criticised for use of phosphorous in Fallujah raids<br /><br />by Andrew Buncombe<br /><br />A leading campaign group has demanded an urgent inquiry into a report that US<br />troops indiscriminately used a controversial incendiary weapon during the<br />battle for Fallujah. Photographic evidence gathered from the aftermath of the<br />battle suggests that women and children were killed by horrific burns caused<br />by the white phosphorus shells dropped by US forces. (...)<br /><br />-> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article325757.ece<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Ha'aretz<br />World Bank: Use 3 routes for people, cargo between Gaza and West Bank<br /><br />by Akiva Eldar<br /><br />The World Bank technical team examining the provision of a "safe crossing"<br />between the Gaza Strip and the areas of the West Bank controlled by the<br />Palestinian Authority has recommended that convoys carrying passengers and<br />cargo operate on three routes connecting the Strip to the southern, central<br />and northern West Bank several times a day, according to a report recently<br />sent to the Palestinian Authority. The report, which details the proposed use<br />of bus, cargo truck and passenger vehicle convoys, is expected to come up in<br />discussions between Middle East Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn and Israeli<br />and Palestinian security officials. Both Israel and the PA accept, in<br />principle, the major points raised in the report, a copy of which has been<br />obtained by Haaretz.</div>
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According to the World Bank report, three routes are needed because of the<br />restrictions Israel imposes on movement within the West Bank. It recommends<br />that the routes be located away from built-up and heavily trafficked areas<br />whenever possible and suggests that convoys of trucks carrying goods could<br />also be used for travel between Palestinian areas and Ben-Gurion<br />International Airport, as well as the Ashdod and Haifa ports. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=643171<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Reuters<br />Saddam's lawyers boycott trial<br /><br />by Ammar Al-Alwani<br /><br />RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Lawyers for Saddam Hussein and his aides severed<br />all contact with the court trying the former Iraqi president on Wednesday<br />after the second murder of a member of the defense team since the trial began<br />last month.</div>
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The judge said the court was considering its response.</div>
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Attorneys representing Saddam and seven co-accused on charges of crimes<br />against humanity considered a second day of hearings set for November 28 to<br />be "canceled and illegitimate", lead counsel Khalil al-Dulaimi told Reuters.</div>
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Interviewed in the Sunni Arab rebel stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, he<br />said he felt personally threatened and renewed demands for the United Nations<br />to intervene to stop the trial following Tuesday's killing of lawyer Adil<br />al-Zubeidi. (...)<br /><br />-><br />http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-11-09T162141Z_01_WRI679485_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />The Independent<br />Calls to move Saddam trial after second lawyer killed<br /><br />by Kim Sengupta<br /><br />in Baghdad</div>
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Fresh doubts have been raised over the trial of Saddam Hussein after a second<br />defence lawyer was murdered in Baghdad.</div>
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Adel al-Zubeidi, representing the former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan,<br />was shot dead, and Thamir al-Khuzaie, a fellow member of the defence team,<br />was wounded in an ambush.</div>
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This was the second killing of lawyers who were acting for Saddam and seven<br />other defendants. Saadoun al-Jananbi was killed last month just days after<br />appearing in the special court trying the case in the Iraqi capital. Defence<br />lawyers said afterwards that they may boycott the proceedings until they are<br />provided with adequate security. (...)<br /><br />-> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article325753.ece<br /><br /></div>
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-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Pacific News Service<br />Chalabi's Return -- After Fallout With U.S., Former Iraqi Exile Plays All<br />Sides<br /><br />by William O. Beeman<br /><br />Editor's Note: Never mind that former Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi was<br />convicted of embezzlement and mislead the U.S. about weapons of mass<br />destruction in Iraq. The savvy politician has remade himself, still has<br />significant support in Washington and may become Iraq's prime minister.</div>
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ChalabiLike a bad penny, Ahmad Chalabi is again turning up, and miraculously<br />the United States is set to back him as prime minister of Iraq in the<br />upcoming Dec. 15 elections for the first "real" government in the country.<br />His visit to Washington is scheduled for November 7-12.</div>
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Never mind that Chalabi was convicted of embezzlement, that he was accused of<br />misleading the United States on the issue of weapons of mass destruction<br />prior to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, or that he guaranteed a<br />loving welcome for U.S. troops from Iraqis, who he claimed would be grateful<br />and ecstatic to be rid of Saddam Hussein. Never mind either that he was<br />receiving $300,000 a month for some time to provide unspecified services for<br />Viceroy Paul Bremer's interim government, or that he led the<br />de-Baathification effort to purge Iraq of his political enemies. (...)</div>
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[November 08, 2005]<br /><br />-><br />http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=52075943cedbf2d83f3298b5c9cde0b5<br /><br /></div>
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My imaginary advice to the President<br /><br />by Jack Glasner<br /><br />November 8, 2005</div>
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De profundis clamavi</div>
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Respectfully and reluctantly I take this opportunity to write to you. I am<br />sure that you are aware that your rating with the American people on the<br />majority of issues (rightfully so, or not) has dropped. Be it from Stem cell<br />to Social Security, nominations to the Supreme Court, or the war in Iraq etc.</div>
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I take this opportunity to illuminate some thoughts. Obviously chances that<br />you will read this letter are remote; nevertheless, I fervently hope you<br />might. (...)<br /><br />-> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article12105.html<br /><br />~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</div>
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===========================================<br />Sent on November 10, 2005 at 01:01 CET</div>
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To unsubscribe:<br />http://www.selvesandothers.org/newsletter.php<br />===========================================</div>
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5m3rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05233964087854887980noreply@blogger.com0