MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH
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November 22, 2006
Turning Tide of History #20: Shifting From Homo Bellicus to Homo Noeticus
Hello everyone!
Another powerfully informative compilation for your review.
Feel free to share widely
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com
P.S. Your feedbacks are as always welcomed and may be included in a coming compilation - unless you prefer they are not. Circulating this compilation (or any part of it) and personally inviting your correspondents to subscribe to this list would also help enlarge the circle of people who have access to this material. Please include the following note and the URL address for the archived copy below along with your forwards, so others may have the opportunity to explore the original copy, if they so choose.
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STATS for this compilation: Over 38,200 words and 180 links provided.
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THE QUOTES
"Thank you so much, Jean! I realise only now, coming back after a week in the mountains and running to read you, that I’m addicted to your news… Since I started reading your post several years ago, I slowly stopped reading newspapers and watching TV news, and you became my essential source of connection with the outside world! We all bless you!!!"
- Dana Stockar (dstockar@yahoo.com)
"It's a fact of history that once the hounds of war are unleashed, the incalculable consequences and the costs render nearly all victories on the ground pyrrhic, victories that are hollow in the end. For wars generate wars, not peace. And yet homo bellicus has not learnt any lesson down the ages; he has graduated from the arrow and bow to the nuclear bomb and missile, but this “progress” is only Faustian, causing the death of the spirit. We have to measure one advancement in terms of ethical perceptions, not in terms of arms. It’s not as though each war is, ipso facto, evil, but we must first know the moral compulsions which prompted us to wage what we call “just wars”."
- Darshan Singh Maini - Taken from The scourge of war and war rhetoric - Costs, consequences make every victory hollow
"The missing link in our evolutionary tree certainly indicates a primary intervention in our genetic make-up. If this is the case, then the New Humans may well have been orchestrated in a similar way with genetic upgrades in our DNA. But the present upgrade is so radical that it appears like an evolutionary jump start, hence the name the New Humans.If humanity is experiencing a quantum leap in its evolution, why is it happening now? Star Children believe they are here to ‘guide the awakening of terrestrial consciousness’. (...) Robert Dean believes that we are very closely connected to aliens, both spiritually and physically, and suggests that they are responsible for the Star Child phenomenon. The development of a new humanity called Homo Noeticus is a term coined by John White who studied parapsychology and noetics (the investigation of consciousness). (...) Five-year-old Aiden from Western Australia says ‘I don’t mind going through the walls, and they teach me more on the ships than I learn at school. They come through walls, float not walk, become invisible, but are still around!’ His mother writes, ‘This astounds me. He is very blasé about it and says he will introduce them to me one day! Aiden knows what I am thinking, finishes my sentences for me, and feels pain when I do’ (from Awakening, 2002).Star Children can be aware of extraterrestrial educational programs when information is downloaded on a subconscious or super-conscious level. Jena is an eight-year-old girl in Perth who described this process as ‘knowledge bombs’ in her head, which sometimes hurt. They can have strange dreams where they know they are on-board spacecraft. They are taught to use their higher sense abilities and they know when they have done well at such tests.Whitley Strieber, experiencer and author of The Secret School, also experienced such lessons on spacecraft. This testimony certainly suggests that the New Humans are not only upgraded physically and psychologically, but are also taught to operate on a broader multi-dimensional frequency which helps them access information and knowledge not available to others.
- Taken from The New Humans (much more in this compilation...)
"The violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories are intolerable."
- Louise Arbour, UN high commissioner for human rights
CONTENTS
1. Feedback from the Recorder
2. Call on your senator to oppose the U.S.-India nuclear deal
3. Prison for Anti-Nuke Clowns, US WMDs Protected
4. THE EARTH IS SHRINKING: Advancing Deserts and Rising Seas Squeezing Civilization
5. RUMSFELD, GONZALES, TENET, OTHERS TO BE CHARGED WITH WAR CRIMES
6. Americans To Be Tortured For Refusing To Show ID?
7. CIA analysis finds no Iranian nuclear weapons drive: report
8. The Planet X and the "JESUIT FOOTAGE"
9. THE CASE FOR EXOPOLITICS: USHERING IN A COSMIC DIALOGUE
10. Countdown to an official and open contact with ETs ???
11. Exopolitics and Global Warming: A Cosmic Connection
12. THE NEW HUMANS: 5th Root race, Indigos, China’s Super Psychics & Star Children
13. This lame duck can do lasting damage
14. The end of the Colombian blood letting could begin in Washington
15. A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives
16. Out of gas
WORTHY OF YOUR ATTENTION
Hope by Willie White Feather - Running time 6 min. 30 sec. POWERFULLY EVOCATIVE!
http://eveningrain.com/Hope.html
Plot Summary: Based on the ideas of Native American storyteller, Willy Whitefeather, 'Hope' illustrates the cause and effect of modern life out of balance... Recommended by Dolores (ravenspiritsong@yahoo.com)
URGENT SIGNATURE DRIVE - Over 50,000 people have already signed!
http://www.ceasefirecampaign.org
Ceasefire Campaign have launched an urgent initiative to show American and British leaders that people all over the world are calling for a peaceful solution in Iraq. They're aiming to gather 100,000 signatures, and they'll publish the total in major US and UK newspapers at the end of the week.
Canada the "piecemaker" - Very informative slideshow - CANADA'S HYPOCRISY IS SICKENING!
http://coat.ncf.ca/Slides/3in1/001.htm
THIS IS A MUST SEE AND SHARE FOR ALL CANADIANS! HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS...
(...) Canadians have been fooled, again and again. Such deceptions are easy in Canada because there is a huge myth towering over us, the myth that Canada is a great force for global peace. Most Canadians don’t have a clue that Canada is one of the world’s top military exporters and spenders, or that we even have a military industrial complex. (...) Canada’s multibillion dollar frigates are already deeply integrated into the U.S. war machine. These warships helped enforce the naval blockade that killed a million and a half Iraqis, mostly children under the age of five. And then there was the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. (...) Canadian frigates with some 1,300 Canadian troops working onboard, fulfilled a very important role in the invasion and occupation of of Iraq. They did this by protecting U.S. warships from attack on their way through the Persian Gulf. Canada's multibillion dollar frigates put U.S. warships safely in place so that they could launch their so-called “shock-and-awe” bombardment of Iraqi cities, killing untold thousands of innocent civilians and paving the way for the illegal occupation. So much for not being involved, eh? (...) Every year, Canada exports billions of dollars worth of high-tech military hardware to the U.S. These photos are from a Press for Conversion! (#53) which documented the fact that 100 Canadian war industries had supplied important parts and services for these three dozen major, weapons-delivery systems used in the Iraq war. (...) The U.S. has used these Canadian cluster bombs in Iraq. One of Bristol’s warheads is a cluster bomb with nine “High Explosive Multipurpose Submunitions.” On its website, the company brags that these cluster bombs have: “a scored interior body wall [that] optimizes fragment size against personnel.” Translation? These cluster bombs are designed to kill as many people as possible. (...) The A-10 Warthog is the main way that this radioactive waste product is disposed of in Iraq and elsewhere. It fires armour-piercing, heavier-than-lead, DU munitions. With its half life of over 2 billion years, DU is responsible for dramatically-increased cancer rates, not only in Iraq, but also in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. It will cause countless miscarriages, diseases and death in these and downwind countries for thousands of years. Canada is the world's top uranium producer and the top uranium supplier to the U.S. Our government pretends that our uranium exports are for “peaceful” purposes only, but they do nothing to stop its use in these munitions. (...) Canada also provides advisors and financial support to Iraq’s Interior Ministry. What's wrong with that?* This Ministry has been caught running torture centres,* Thousands of its officers have been withdrawn for corruption, and* It works with death squads accused of executing a thousand people per month in Baghdad alone this past summer. The RCMP, which isn't exactly known to worry much about the torture of Canadian citizens abroad (ask Maher Arar), should have nothing to do with this notorious Iraqi institution and its faceless commandos. CLIP - MUCH MORE ON THE REAL ROLE OF CANADA IN AFGHANISTAN, AND ALSO ABOUT THE FULL, AND DECEITFUL - PARTICIPATION OF CANADA TO THE LARGEST WEAPON DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM EVER, THE BALLISTIC MISSILE "DEFENSE" SYSTEM - Recommended by Nattanya (nattanya@telus.net)
Waging Peace - By Marianne Williamson
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15645.htm
A bill before Congress would establish a US Department of Peace. This measure would provide practical, nonviolent solutions for the problems of domestic and international conflict. It would apply the institutional heft of the US government to a serious effort not merely at avoiding war or waging war more effectively. It would take America to the next evolutionary step: It would proactively wage peace.
Orgasm for Peace ~ Solstice, Dec 22nd, 2006 ~ Peace Through Global Ecstasy
http://www.globalorgasm.org/demo.html AND http://www.GlobalOrgasm.org
Recommended by Larry Morningstar (mana7@earthlink.net)
Simpsons do Army Recruitment [VIDEO] (November 14, 2006)
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/44292/
The Army: Everything you like. Hat tip to The Largest Minority on this scathing clip of the Simpson's satirizing the recruitment process. Including a recruitment commercial so ridiculous it could only be taking its cues from actual recruitment commercials...
Cartoon of the month: To Impeach or Not To Impeach?
http://www.bendib.com/newones/2006/november/small/11-19-Impeach.jpg
Demoglad
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/glad.swf
FLASHBACK: Bush's 2000 RNC Convention hypocrisy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slmr024JYaA&mode=related&search=
Watch Al Jazeera English Live Broadcast
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15619.htm
Al Jazeera English, the new international news channel from the Qatar-based television network, has begun broadcasting in English from its main studios in Doha.
John Conner Crashes ANOTHER College (UCSD) With 9/11 Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50DyHQZ2llk
Mind, Memory and Archetype, Part I -- by Rupert Sheldrake http://www.satyacenter.com/news-global_visionaries-mind-memory-1
Morphic Fields: The Collective Unconscious - In this essay, I am going to discuss the concept of collective memory as a background for understanding Jung's concept of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious only makes sense in the context of some notion of collective memory. This then takes us into a very wide-ranging examination of the nature and principle of memory-not just in human beings and not just in the animal kingdom; not even just in the realm of life-but in the universe as a whole. Such an encompassing perspective is part of a very profound paradigm shift that is taking place in science: the shift from the mechanistic to an evolutionary and wholistic world view. (...) Each species has its own fields, and within each organism there are fields within fields. Within each of us is the field of the whole body; fields for arms and legs and fields for kidneys and livers; within are fields for the different tissues inside these organs, and then fields for the cells, and fields for the sub-cellular structures, and fields for the molecules, and so on. There is a whole series of fields within fields. The essence of the hypothesis I am proposing is that these fields, which are already accepted quite widely within biology, have a kind of in-built memory derived from previous forms of a similar kind. The liver field is shaped by the forms of previous livers and the oak tree field by the forms and organization of previous oak trees. Through the fields, by a process called morphic resonance, the influence of like upon like, there is a connection among similar fields. That means that the field's structure has a cumulative memory, based on what has happened to the species in the past. This idea applies not only to living organisms but also to protein molecules, crystals, even to atoms. In the realm of crystals, for example, the theory would say that the form a crystal takes depends on its characteristic morphic field. Morphic field is a broader term which includes the fields of both form and behavior; hereafter, I shall use the word morphic field rather than morphogenetic. CLIP
Earth Activist Training - Planting the Seeds of Change
http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/
Earth Activist Training blends a full permaculture certification course with Earth-based spirituality, practical political effectiveness, and nature awareness. Learn how to transform land, communities, political systems, and yourself. Discover solutions, renew personal energy, and find hope for our world.
Starhawk: Finding and Holding the Vision - 6 week course - January 29 - March 11
http://www.maybelogic.org/courses2.htm
In the ancient, pre-Christian Goddess traditions of Europe and the Middle East, the earth is sacred: a living being that all of us are part of. Witches, shamans, and Pagans draw on the balance of life for knowledge, renewal and healing. But right now, at this crucial moment in time, that balance is threatened by global warming, social and environmental breakdown. Our society is faced with a huge challenge—the necessity for fundamental changes in our way of life. Each of us alive today is here for a purpose. We each have a unique role to play in bringing about that transformation—our own gifts, our own vision. And the earth needs us each to be our most creative, compassionate and powerful self.But how do we find that vision, our purpose for being here, our true work? How do we step up to the challenge, and how can we hold a vision through times of adversity, and find the courage to overcome fears, blocks and challenges? For some of us, it’s hard to see the vision clearly. Others may need support to take new steps and dare new paths. Some of us may already be on the road, but need help to sustain our energy and enthusiasm when obstacles loom and setbacks appear. The greatest gifts are often found after hard climbs on twisted paths.Magic, “the art of changing consciousness at will,” offers us tools. In this six week online course, Starhawk will guide us through a process of discernment and reflection, to find and identify our big vision, and develop the grounded spiritual practice that can be our base as we dare to make it real.Using readings, meditations, directed exercises, journaling and discussion, we’ll find the inner compass that can guide our choices, connect to the allies that can support us, find the courage to face challenges and overcome fears, and the strength to take our vision out into expression and action.When we put our lives toward the service of the sacred, powerful allies and great powers of regeneration and renewal work through us.
More on Starhawk: http://www.maybelogic.org/starhawk2.htm
To Enroll: http://www.maybelogic.org/enroll2.htm
News from Starhawk/winter schedule: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lightenlife/message/27778
THERESA MARIE GANDHI: Activist Poet - What Would MK Gandhi Do?
http://www.tmgandhi.com/
It was truly inspiring to be one among more than 60,000 who participated at the birth of a global movement for economic justice in Seattle, November 1999. While our non-violent civil disobedience in response to the World Trade Organization was dismissed and demonized by the corporate media, the Independent Media heard the many voices calling for change. Various articles posted on Independent Media discussed what to do next, when police can brutalize with impunity and arrest citizens for conspiring to exercise rights to free speech. Such articles inspired the following thoughts to the discussion.“What is today’s Salt March?” That has been my question since June 1983 at the Congress for the Planetary Initiate for the World We Choose. Gandhi’s issue was salt and the British tax on it, a natural resource. Today there is an active global movement by corporations to privatize water. Additionally, the WTO attempts to legalize the globalization of poverty and economic injustice instituting the New Corporate World Order. If these trends are not stopped it puts humanity on a fast track to extinction. CLIP Recommended by "Theresa Marie" (tmarie@whidbey.net) who wrote: "Howdy Jean, I have been on your list serve a couple of years now and really value the compilations that you assemble and send out. I've been an activist for over 30 years and currently live on Whidbey Island. My web page contains articles on timely topics, essays, poetry, comments I've submitted to various governmental plans of action affecting our environment and my HerStory. There is a link to my blog that I posted to 11-19-06 for the first time as an introduction. Normally I don't write about myself and future blogs will be mostly on current events and what folks can do about it. You will find them at http://www.tmgandhi.com and http://www.tmgandhi.blogspot.com
Greening the Desert
http://www.permaculture.org.au/greening.htm
Another Chris Angel video
http://homepage.mac.com/woz/filechute/magicfood.wmv
ALSO RECOMMENDED
Embittered Insiders Turn Against Bush (19 November 2006)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111906Y.shtml
The weekend after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, Kenneth Adelman and a couple of other promoters of the Iraq war gathered at Vice President Cheney's residence to celebrate. The invasion had been the "cakewalk" Adelman predicted. Cheney and his guests raised their glasses, toasting President Bush and victory. "It was a euphoric moment," Adelman recalled. Forty-three months later, the cakewalk looks more like a death march, and Adelman has broken with the Bush team. He had an angry falling- out with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this fall. He and Cheney are no longer on speaking terms. And he believes that "the president is ultimately responsible" for what Adelman now calls "the debacle that was Iraq." Adelman, a former Reagan administration official and onetime member of the Iraq war brain trust, is only the latest voice from inside the Bush circle to speak out against the president or his policies. Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, fresh from the sting of a midterm election defeat, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress. A certain weary crankiness sets in with any administration after six years. By this point in Bill Clinton's tenure, bitter Democrats were competing to denounce his behavior with an intern even as they were trying to fight off his impeachment. Ronald Reagan was deep in the throes of the Iran-contra scandal. But Bush's strained relations with erstwhile friends and allies take on an extra edge of bitterness amid the dashed hopes of the Iraq venture. "There are a lot of lives that are lost," Adelman said in an interview last week. "A country's at stake. A region's at stake. This is a gigantic situation... This didn't have to be managed this bad. It's just awful." The sense of Bush abandonment accelerated during the final weeks of the campaign with the publication of a former aide's book accusing the White House of moral hypocrisy and with Vanity Fair quoting Adelman, Richard N. Perle and other neoconservatives assailing White House leadership of the war. Since the Nov. 7 elections, Republicans have pinned their woes on the president. CLIP
Bush: Immigrants May Be Held Indefinitely
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111406Z.shtml
Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees.
Grand Theft Pentagon
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111706F.shtml
A.K. Gupta writes: "It just goes to show how pathetic the media are that anyone believed even for a moment that Bush and the Republicans were interested in bipartisanship. Bush's push to keep John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN indicates how determined the White House is to continue the pursuit of its ideological agenda. While the mainstream media has picked up on this, few if any have noticed how the Bush administration is trying to trap the incoming Democratic majority with its absurd funding request for the war on terror."
Military may ask $127 Billions for wars
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-16-iraq-costs_x.htm
The Bush administration is preparing its largest spending request yet for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a proposal that could make the conflict the most expensive since World War II.
United States Rides Weapons Bonanza Wave
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15677.htm
War, instability, and high oil prices have created a perfect storm of profit for the world's weapons manufacturers. This year, military analysts predict the biggest arms bonanza since 1993... which is saying something because in the aftermath of the first Gulf War the global industry reaped the benefits of a $42 billion arms race. As the world's largest producer and exporter, the United States is riding the wave. For fiscal year 2006, which ended on September 31, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency churned out notices for $21 billion in arms sales offers . In most cases, that agency is required to notify Congress of all potential major arms deals worth more than $14 million. In one typical day—September 28—the DSCA issued notification on $5.5 billion in agreements. South Korea would get $1.5 billion in Patriot missile equipment and other hardware, Turkey was offered a $2.9 billion package including 30 F-16 fighter planes, while Jordan and Chile were also offered weapons packages. CLIP
At least 700 Iraqis die in 8 days of unrelenting violence (Nov 19, 2006)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4346829.html
The numbers are staggering: In the past eight days, 714 Iraqis have fallen victim to the country's sectarian bloodbath. They've been beheaded, tortured and blown up while looking for work. They've been shot, kidnapped and felled by mortars. The number of killings in the past eight days is more than all but a few U.S. states see in a year. Iraq's death toll has reached at least 1,319 already in November, well above the 1,216 who died in all of October, which was the deadliest month in Iraq since The Associated Press began tracking the figure in April 2005. At least 111 people were killed nationwide on Sunday, following a week of appallingly high daily death tolls: 134, 90, 119, 106, 49, 52 and 53. The actual totals are likely considerably higher because many deaths are not reported. Victims in those cases are quickly buried according to Muslim custom and never reach morgues or hospitals to be counted. CLIP
Rep. Dennis Kucinich: Cut Off Iraq War Funding
http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20061116_kucinich_cut_off_funding/
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) explains why cutting off funding for the Iraq war is the only way to truly protect American troops.
Documents Show More Pentagon Spying on Peace Activists
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112106Z.shtml
Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the ACLU in New York, said the new documents suggested that the military's efforts to glean intelligence on protesters went beyond what was previously known. If intelligence officials "are going to be doing investigations or monitoring in a place where people gather to worship or to study, they should have a pretty clear indication that a crime has occurred," Mr. Wizner added.
Did the CIA kill Bobby Kennedy?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15692.htm
In 1968, Robert Kennedy seemed likely to follow his brother, John, into the White House. Then, on June 6, he was assassinated - apparently by a lone gunman. But Shane O'Sullivan says he has evidence implicating three CIA agents in the murder.
Hard US lessons, harder landings (Nov 21, 2006) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HK21Dj02.html
(...) The debt, income and savings situation of the American middle - if we take the three middle quintiles of the income distribution to be the middle class - is horrifying. Many of these people are in the difficult situation of simply waiting to discover themselves and be discovered as former members of the middle class in terms of material quality of life. 2006 will be a year where America's aggregate savings rate is negative. Households are simply not saving anything. Real average weekly earnings of production and non-supervisory workers - over 75% of all us payrolls - have been stagnant since the mid 1970s. If we use 2005 dollars and the CPI-U (consumer price index for urban consumers), average weekly earnings decreased by about $1 per week over the 30-year interval 1975-2005. The folks have thus stopped saving and have taken on massive amounts of housing and consumer debt. A look through the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States, or Z1, released in September 19, is a traumatic experience. It reveals the contours of America's debt disaster in stark statistics that grow worse with each passing quarter. In 1999, total outstanding household debt was $6.4 trillion. As of the end of the second quarter of 2006 total outstanding household debt was $12.3 trillion. Household debt has increased by almost as much since 1999 as the sum total of all debt accumulated by all households across the preceding 220-year history of the US. In 1999, household mortgage debt stood at $4.4 trillion. At the close of the second quarter of 2006 it had more than doubled to $9.33trillion. In 1999, consumer credit outstanding was measured at $1.6 trillion. Today, this stands at approximately $2.4 trillion dollars, signaling a 50% increase in less than seven years. This is usually soft peddled and talked down by comparison to skyrocketing housing values. Household assets held as real estate increased by $9 trillion from 2000-2006. This might be called the mother of all modern bubbles. Yet household net worth struggled up by a mere $1.2 trillion. Net worth badly lags housing values because of waves of cashing out. When these waves crash ashore it will be with massive destructive force.
The pain of a weak US dollar (Nov 16, 2006)
http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HK16Dj02.html
The United States' massive trade deficit exerts pressure on the US dollar as currency is shoveled abroad in return for goods and services. As the US economy is slowing down and possibly sliding into recession, the rate at which the trade deficit grows may also be slowing; in September, this deficit was "only" US$64.3 billion - still near record territory but not as bad as economists had predicted. Does this mean the worst for the dollar is over? After all, it now costs over 50% more to pay for a 100 euro hotel room than six years ago, assuming the hotel has not raised its price. Can it get worse? Since you probably cannot afford to go to Europe on vacation anymore, it may not matter to you. But even if you do not travel abroad, it does matter to you as your purchasing power erodes; among others, the cost of imports and commodities, including the price you pay at the gasoline pump, is likely to go up. The trade deficit is a component of the broader current-account deficit, which also includes investment income. The current-account deficit is the shortfall that needs to be covered by foreign investors for the dollar not to fall. Last year, foreigners needed to purchase $805 billion in dollar-denominated assets just to keep the dollar from falling. That's more than $2 billion every single day. As the US economy is slowing down, what matters is whether other factors propping up the dollar slow down even faster. The most apparent one is whether foreigners will be as inclined to invest in a slowing US economy. CLIP
Banks warned of 'end to the good times'
http://money.guardian.co.uk/saving/banks/story/0,,1948961,00.html
The City regulator issued a warning to the high street banks yesterday that the "clouds were already darkening" and urged them to prepare for the impact of rising unemployment and the knock-on effect on bad debts.
Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry
http://tinyurl.com/y3fwnu
The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security."
US Vote: Trouble for Harper (Nov 13, 2006) http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20061113172019310
For millions of Americans and Canadians, it was a huge sense of relief to see the most corrupt, amoral and incompetent Congress, possibly in American history, go down to defeat. Those days, we can hope, are over, as the political agenda is now in the hands of a Democratic Congress. For a few weeks, at least, we can enjoy that relief and not dwell on the fact that things may not get a whole lot better. Given the general state of American duh-mocracy (poisoned by money, gerrymandered seats, defective voting machines and dirty tricks), we have to keep our expectations in check. A lot of the new Democrats look a lot like Republicans. We can focus on the fact that for the first time, a woman — and one with smarts and heart — will be the Speaker of the House, and that for the first time, both a socialist, Bernie Saunders, and a Muslim were elected. These are not small things. And Americans — despite being shamelessly lied to by the Republicans and abandoned by their media — came through in the end. They said enough is enough. Bless them. (...) Government is back in the U.S., after six years of rule by those who were, like Harper, contemptuous of government. The Democrats will be pushing for an increase in the minimum wage, progressive changes to their prescription drug plan, less draconian immigration laws, improvements to their disastrous health care system and a more multilateral approach to the world. And the inheritance tax will stay in place. If it were any other country, it wouldn't matter. But Canadians are preoccupied with what happens in the Empire next door and what they see will make Harper and his politics look out of synch with the world. Polls released immediately following the U.S. elections show Canadians increasingly preoccupied with the very issues that hurt Harper's government. CLIP
KHIAM SOUTHERN LEBANON: A BOMB’S ANATOMY (Israel Nuked Lebanon!) (9 November 2006)
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchieste/09112006_bomba_ing.asp
The special report was triggered by the radioactivity measurements reported on a crater probably created by an Israeli Bunker Buster bomb in the village of Khiam, in southern Lebanon. (...) What kind of weapon is this? What weapon leaves traces of radiation and produces such lethal and circumscribed consequences? Researcher Dai Williams believes this is a new class of weapons using enriched uranium, not through fission processes but through new physical processes kept secret for at least 20 years. CLIP
IDF admits targeting civilian areas in Lebanon with cluster bombs
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/789876.html
For the first time Monday, the IDF admitted targeting populated areas with cluster munitions.
Budget-saving, American-made cluster bombs left vicious legacy in Lebanon
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15695.htm
During the second Lebanon war, Israel made use of American-made cluster bombs that left behind thousands of unexploded bomblets, even though Israel Military Industries produces cluster bombs that leave nearly no unexploded munitions.
Israel lobby wants Pentagon purged of anti-zionists
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/pentagon__infiltrated_.html
A leading voice of the pro-Israel lobby is pushing for an old-style “witchhunt”—under the guise of “homeland security”—to identify (and expel) individuals in the U.S. government and our military who are suspected of being hostile to Israel. The call for a witch-hunt is based on the outlandish thesis that “Islamo-fascists” and Muslim “jihadist” operatives and, perhaps more particularly, their “sympathizers”—however loosely defined—have infested America’s defense, national security and federal law enforcement community. (...) But in the fevered minds of JINSA and hard-line Zionist elements, the real concern is that there are growing numbers of people high up in the FBI and the CIA and in the military who are getting “fed up” with Zionist power in America. Top military leaders openly dismissed the need for war against Iraq and Iran, both wars of which have been long-time policy plans of the Zionist lobby. And all of this, in the view of the JINSA sphere, constitutes effective collaboration with and sympathy for the dreaded “jihadists.” CLIP
Bush gives go-ahead for 'Bush Center' in Israel
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/788582.html
U.S. President George Bush was informed on Tuesday of an initiative to establish a center under his name in Israel, as a sign of gratitude for his support for the country and its security.
Israel Orders Murder of Elected Hamas Politicians
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15673.htm
According to Israeli security sources, a decision to assassinate leading Hamas politicians was taken by Olmert and his defence minister, Amir Peretz. Early yesterday Israeli missiles struck Hamas targets in Gaza, including a charity run by the group.
Palestinians block Israeli air raid
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/24F212B0-A683-47EE-B791-E187EECD8842.htm
The Israeli military abandoned a planned air strike on the home of a Palestinian fighter in Gaza after hundreds of Palestinians formed a human shield around the building.
UN asks Israel to vacate Gaza: US opposes, EU backs resolution
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15672.htm
The UN General Assembly on Friday voted overwhelmingly to condemn Israel for "indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force" in its military offensive in Gaza which, according to the Palestinian ambassador, threatens to "destroy the entire people."
World must take decisive step to stop Israel
http://tinyurl.com/yx5kkq
Ahmed bin Abdullah described the Israeli massacre at Beit Hanoun and the continued Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, as war crimes and crimes against humanity adding these crimes would be a mark of disgrace on the face of the world community if it did not take a decisive step.
Summer Rains and Saad (11/20/06)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15690.htm
Gaza - Autumn 2006 --- The thin and limpid crescent lies on its back in a clear sky. If it does not reappear tomorrow then Ramadan will end. A 'drone' can be heard above the amplified recitations of the Quran, but it cannot be seen. On the third floor of the battered and very busy Shifa hospital here in Gaza city lies a 9 yr old boy in his fourth month of recovery. Saad is a sad and frightened boy. He has lost all the muscle from the front of his left thigh. The shape of his femur can be seen in its entirety beneath the skilful skin grafting. There is just a twitch of motion in the foot. Most parts of his young body are scarred. There are many of punctate type, including on his face. There is a colostomy which will probably be permanent because his bowels were badly damaged. The tracheostomy has healed, and the pleural fistula is well on that way.Following the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit and the shooting dead of two of his comrades by a Palestinian guerrilla unit on the 25th of June, 'Operation Summer Rains' was set in place by the occupier headed by Mr Olmert. This was on top of the medieval siege which started at the end of March and in which Israel was joined by the twenty-five nations of the EU, the US, Canada and Japan. This was the reward for scrupulous elections and a Hamas majority of 72 seats in a legislature of 135. There are no ends to the ingenuity of collective punishment. In November 2005, the 1.4 million population had been terrified by sonic booms at roof top level. British Aerospace should be rightly proud of the head-up cockpit display in those F16s which so enhanced the aeronautical skills of the IAF as they smashed sleep and windows in Gaza prison. Anyway, post-Shalit there was an explosion of state assassination from the air. In early July, Saad was in the street when hell was loosed from a drone. Two people were killed immediately and two others died shortly after admission because their injuries were so severe. So Saad is a living remnant of electronic and explosive wizardry. The surgeons of El Shifa have many high resolution photographs of the surviving and the dead. These are not correlated with the target sites and neither are there names or numbers of the victims. However, in those post-Shalit weeks they saw over 250 deaths including 57 children. In such conditions of chaos, grief and horror, record keeping is relegated. CLIP
Gaza's Reality - Would you be able to live like this? ABSOLUTELY HEART-WRENCHING!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15693.htm
"We live in constant fear" Video Runtime 5 minutes
UN slams Israel rights violation
http://tinyurl.com/y55oy4
The UN high commissioner for human rights has criticised rights violations in the Palestinian territories as she visited the site of a deadly botched Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip. Louise Arbour said during her brief visit to Gaza on Monday: "The violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories are intolerable. "I think it's clear that civilians are tremendously exposed." Arbour said that her visit was to express UN condolences and show concern for civilians in Beit Hanoun where some 80 people were killed in this month's Israeli offensive. Arbour was speaking not far from the Nasser mosque, one of the oldest mosques in Gaza whose lone minaret is all that remains after the offensive, before heading into talks with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, at his Gaza City seafront office.She emphasised that she would stress to both Israeli and Palestinian authorities the need to protect civilians. More than 60 Palestinians were killed during a six-day Israeli operation in Beit Hanoun. Nineteen others, mostly women and children, died in an Israeli shelling on November 8. Arbour's visit comes less than a week after the UN Human Rights Council voted last Wednesday to send an urgent fact-finding mission to Beit Hanoun to examine the impact of Israel's attack on the Palestinian homes.Thirty-two countries, mainly from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, voted for the resolution introduced by Arab and Islamic nations at the 47-member Council, which was subsequently denounced by Washington as "imbalanced".
Gideon Levy : After the rain of death (Nov 16) - MASS MURDERS BY ISRAEL - YET AGAIN!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/788997.html
This is Islam al-Atamna. A girl of 14. She is sitting in her black mourning clothes. Eight close relatives - including her mother, grandparents, uncles and aunts - were all killed before her eyes, one after the other. They were killed in the street after they awoke at home in horror at the sound of the first shell that exploded and then fled outdoors, where the next shells caught them. About 11 fell on a residential neighborhood, one shell a minute, a rain of death, pursuing them in their flight. Fatherless for some time already, the girl is left alone in the world with her two little sisters and her 3-year-old brother Abdullah, whose legs were severed and who is hospitalized in the Al-Hilal Hospital in Gaza. What should we say to Islam? What can we say to Islam? That the chip in the radar system is to blame? That the electronic component is responsible? Perhaps that the Palestinians are to blame? Since the accident the girl has not fallen asleep for even a moment, which one can see in her frozen face. Islam is now a girl in shock, whose entire world was destroyed last Wednesday morning, with a total of 22 relatives dead and dozens wounded. Islam's town is upside down. The roads are full of open pits, crushed electricity poles, smashed cars, torn houses and a sewage system whose effluents flow quietly in the streets. After the six-day war waged by the Israel Defense Forces against Beit Hanun during Operation Autumn Clouds - when soldiers also took over Islam's house, imprisoning on the first floor the 104 people who lived in the eight apartments in the building, all relatives - people here expected to wake up last week to a new dawn, a dawn without soldiers. The day before, IDF had left Beit Hanun after "completing its mission" - nobody knows exactly what that mission was - and the residents awoke to freedom. But just then the volley of shells landed. Between 6:30 and 7 A.M., on the row of houses in the street that ends in a recently planted orchard, a gift from the Japanese government. Now the survivors are sitting in the street of death, all of whose fatalities are members of one family, the Al-Atamna family. There has never before been such killing, of 22 members of one family, not even under direct Israeli occupation. In the hospitals in Gaza, Egypt and Israel the wounded, about 40 in number, are moaning, many of them with amputated limbs and head injuries, quite a number of them children. The dead also include children, and mainly women: The mass poster that was printed presents the portraits of the men and the children who were killed, whereas the pictures of the women are replaced by paintings of red roses, as is the custom. CLIP
Hezbollah Threatens Protests to Topple Lebanese Government
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112006D.shtml
In a deepening crisis that has paralyzed Lebanese politics, the leader of Hezbollah urged his well-organized followers to prepare for mass protests aimed at toppling the US-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
Lebanese Christian Leader Killed
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112106M.shtml
Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday. The shooting will certainly heighten the political tension in Lebanon, where the leading Muslim Shiite party, Hezbollah, has threatened to topple the government if it does not get a bigger say in Cabinet decision-making.
CIA Admits to Memo From Bush on Interrogation Techniques
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111506Z.shtml
After years of denials, the CIA has formally acknowledged the existence of two classified documents governing aggressive interrogation and detention policies for terrorism suspects, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. But CIA lawyers say the documents - memos from President Bush and the Justice Department - are still so sensitive that no portion can be released to the public.
Iraq Is a "Disaster" Admits Blair
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111806A.shtml
Blair's most frank admission yet over the war in Iraq came during an interview on the new Al Jazeera English television channel with Sir David Frost. Tony Blair admitted that British intervention in Iraq has been a disaster last night - sending shockwaves through Westminster.
Time for Another Body Count in Iraq (19 November 2006) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112006K.shtml
(...) Last month there was very little discussion of the study published in the Lancet, a highly respected British medical journal, which estimated that 650,000 Iraqis have died since 2003 as a result of the war. The Lancet study too was dismissed as an "October surprise," and it disappeared from the news within days of its publication. But now that the election is over, can we finally discuss it? I was shocked myself when I saw the figure of 650,000. It seemed huge, much larger than I had imagined possible. It is approximately four times the Iraqi Health Ministry's recent estimate, and twice the figure of 300,000 that is often given as an estimate of the number of people killed by Saddam Hussein during his 23 years of brutal rule. (...) The minimum value in their confidence interval was 392,979, and their maximum value was 942,636, which means that although 650,000 is their most likely estimate, the true number could be substantially lower or higher. Even so, the low end of this range is nearly 400,000, while the high end is nearly a million. (...) Only when you go out and knock on the doors of families, actively looking for deaths, do you begin to get close to the right number. This method is now tried and tested. It has been the basis for mortality estimates in war zones such as Darfur and the Congo. Interestingly, when we report figures from these countries politicians do not challenge them. They frown, nod their heads and agree that the situation is grave and intolerable. The international community must act, they say. When it comes to Iraq the story is different. Expect the current government to mobilise all its efforts to undermine the work done by this American and Iraqi team. Expect the government to criticise the Lancet for being too political. Expect the government to do all it can to dismiss this story and wash its hands of its responsibility to take these latest findings seriously. CLIP
"An American Killing Field" - 6 Minute Video
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15653.htm
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, speaks of the reality of life in Iraq under U.S. occupation.
The Salvador Option: The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek
Death Squads Exposed: The reality of U.S. occupation Of Iraq
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15615.htm
This shocking film investigates the links between the death squads and high-ranking Shia politicians. It reveals how the Shia militia that these politicians control have systematically infiltrated and taken over police units and even entire government ministries. It investigates how these units are closely linked to the death squads, indeed they often are the death squads. And the killers act with impunity -- there's little investigation into their activities.
New Survey: Iraqis Want a Speedy U.S. Exit -- and Back Attacks on Our Forces
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15697.htm
A new poll in Iraq makes it more stark than ever: the Iraqi people want the U.S. to exit their country. And most Iraqis now approve of attacks on U.S. forces, even though 94% express disapproval of al-Qaeda.
Afghan violence 'likely to rise'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6153194.stm
A top American defence official has warned that the level of violence in Afghanistan will go on rising.
CIA: Taliban, al Qaeda resurge in Afghanistan
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-11/16/content_5340271.htm
Al Qaeda's influence and numbers are rapidly growing in Afghanistan, with fighters operating from new havens and mimicking techniques learned on the Iraqi battlefield for use against U.S. and allied troops, U.S. intelligence officials said.
US Airstrikes Climb Sharply in Afghanistan
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111706K.shtml
The Air Force has conducted more than 2,000 airstrikes in Afghanistan over the past six months, a sharp increase in bombing that reflects the growing demand for American air cover since NATO has assumed a larger ground combat role, Air Force officials said.
Why We Fight - A Must Watch Film By Eugene Jarecki
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8494.htm
What are the forces that shape and propel American militarism? This award-winning film provides an inside look at the anatomy of the American war machine.
Swedish human rights worker viciously attacked by Jewish extremists in Hebron
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/11/18/hebron-day-06/
Hebron, November 18 - A 19-year old Swedish human rights worker had her cheekbone broken by a Jewish extremist in Hebron today. Earlier the same day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year-old child, were injured by the settler-supporting extremists, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli army, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the attacks. Tove Johansson from Stockholm walked through the Tel Rumeida checkpoint with a small group of human rights workers (HRWs) to accompany Palestinian schoolchildren to their homes. They were confronted by about 100 Jewish extremists in small groups. They started chanting in Hebrew “We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you too!” — a refrain the settlers had been repeating to internationals in Tel Rumeida all day. After about thirty seconds of waiting, a small group of very aggressive male Jewish extremists surrounded the international volunteers and began spitting at them, so much so that the internationals described it as “like rain.” Then men from the back of the crowd began jumping up and spitting, while others from the back and side of the crowd kicked the volunteers. The soldiers, who were standing at the checkpoint just a few feet behind the HRWs, looked on as they were being attacked.One settler then hit Tove on the left side of her face with an empty bottle, breaking it on her face and leaving her with a broken cheekbone. She immediately fell to the ground and the group of Jewish extremists who were watching began to clap, cheer, and chant. The soldiers, who had only watched until this point, then came forward and motioned at the settlers, in a manner which the internationals described as “ok… that’s enough guys.” (...) The incident was the latest attack by extremist Jews in Hebron. The small group of Khannist settlers in Tel Rumeida regularly attack and harass Palestinians in the area. The violence sometimes spills over to the international human rights workers who accompany Palestinians in an attempt to protect them from settler attack. The settlers in Tel Rumeida encourage Jewish tourists to come to support them, as a way of making up for their small numbers. Today, hundreds had come from tours in Israel for a special event many from overseas: France, England and the United States.
Israel stole private land for settlements
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061121/ts_nm/mideast_settlements_dc
Almost 40 percent of land held by illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians.
Rep. Rangel Will Seek to Reinstate Draft
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15681.htm
Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 if the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has his way.
Top House Democrats to bar military draft plan
http://tinyurl.com/y53w2t
A reinstatement of the military draft, being pushed by a senior Democrat, will not be slated for consideration in the House of Representatives, the chamber's newly elected top leaders said on Monday.
Criminalizing Compassion in the War on Terror: Muslim Charities and the Case of Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112006F.shtml
In May 2005, David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary about the constitutional implications of a series of "anti-terrorism" laws rushed through Congress after 9/11. Cole said [emphasis mine]: The statutes described above prohibit virtually all associational support to selected political organizations, while granting executive branch officials effectively unreviewable discretion to target disfavored groups. These laws make it a crime to write an op-ed, provide legal advice, volunteer one's time, or distribute a magazine of any "designated" group, even if there is no connection whatsoever between the individual's support and any illegal activity of the proscribed group. Under these statutes, an American citizen who sends a treatise on nonviolence to the Kurdistan Workers' Party to encourage it to forgo violence for peace can be sent to prison for 15 years. This is so even if he proves that he intended the treatise to be used only for peaceful ends, and that it was in fact used solely for that purpose. Such a moral innocent can be said to be "guilty" by association. If you think this is an exaggeration and couldn't happen, think again. This is precisely the situation in which Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir found himself. The T-Word - According to United Nations statistics, every month throughout the 1990s almost 6,000 children under the age of five in Iraq were dying from lack of food and access to simple medicines. Three senior U.N. officials resigned because of what they considered a "genocidal" policy against Iraq. The United States led the effort to place restrictive sanctions on Iraq, and when Madeleine Albright, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was asked in a CBS interview if the deaths of half a million children was a price worth paying to punish Saddam Hussein, she infamously replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." When the deaths of children over the age of five and adults are added, the number killed as a direct result of the sanctions rises to between 1.5 and 2 million dead civilians. In response to the humanitarian catastrophe created by these brutal sanctions, Dhafir, a man of Iraqi descent and Muslim faith, and an American citizen for almost 30 years, started the charity Help the Needy (HTN). Dr. Dhafir is a pillar of the Muslim community in Central New York. He was a founding member of the local mosque, and he served as the imam at Syracuse University until it hired a full-time imam. He paid a substantial amount of the running costs of the mosque and provided free medical consultation to those at the mosque without health insurance. His medical practice was in Rome, New York, an underserved area in which he was the sole oncologist. In his practice he provided free health care to people without insurance, and he paid for their expensive chemotherapy medicine out of his own pocket. For 13 years, Dhafir worked tirelessly to help publicize the plight of the Iraqi people and to raise funds to help them. According to the government, Dhafir donated $1.25 million of his own money over the years. As an oncologist, he was also concerned about the effects of depleted uranium on the Iraqi population, which was experiencing skyrocketing cancer rates. For the crime of breaking the U.S. and U.K.-sponsored U.N. sanctions on Iraq and sending humanitarian aid to sick and starving civilians, Dhafir was held without bail for 31 months and then sentenced to 22 years in prison. By implication, his were terrorist acts.(...) She notes that, as happened in Dhafir's case, conspiracy laws and money laundering laws used "creatively" with the PATRIOT Act and IEEPA can be used to construct a vast distorted picture. Dhafir's case sets a legal precedent and means that others who provide humanitarian and medical assistance to those in need could, like Dhafir, end up being put away for the rest of their lives. (...) The ever-present threat of a "terrorist designation" by the Treasury Department functions based on the principle of "guilty until proven innocent." The use of secret evidence, hearsay, erroneous translations, guilt by association and press reports in recent court cases further erodes the ability of charities to rely on basic assumptions regarding their constitutional rights, especially when the courts ultimately favor the government when "national security" is allegedly at stake. Overzealous surveillance tactics of the intelligence community such as wiretapping, infiltrating organizations by bribing employees to work as spies (thereby disrupting normal and lawful humanitarian activities), and engaging in other forms of harassment - when added to the above bleak picture - will not only chill, but will freeze completely American Muslim charitable giving overseas. Perhaps this is the goal of the U.S. government. However, no one should be fooled into thinking that America or the American people will be much safer as a result. History Watches - Writing during the McCarthy era, Judge Irving R. Kaufman warned, "Once we embark on shortcuts by creating a category of 'obviously guilty' whose rights are denied, we run the risk that the circle of the unprotected will grow." We appear once again to have entered a dark time in which the civil liberties of a select group of people are being denied. The message being sent to Muslims across the country is that pillars of their community can be knocked down without any call for equal justice from the non-Muslim community. It is incumbent upon each of us to defend civil liberties for all, not least because "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
http://www.citylights.com/CLpub4th.html#4758
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress is Howard Zinn’s major new collection of essays on American history, class, immigration, justice, and ordinary citizens who have made a difference.
BBC reopens Kelly case with new film (November 12, 2006)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2450132,00.html
THE BBC is risking a new confrontation with Downing Street by launching an investigation into the death of David Kelly, the scientist at the centre of the storm over the “sexed up” dossier on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction. It is reopening the case less than three years after its management virtually imploded with the resignations of Greg Dyke, the director general, and Gavyn Davies, its chairman, in the wake of Lord Hutton’s report into the affair. The corporation is filming a programme about the alleged suspicious circumstances surrounding Kelly’s death in an Oxfordshire wood. It has told officials who carried out a post-mortem and toxicology tests on Kelly’s body that it “wants to quash conspiracy theories” about the death. But it has interviewed independent doctors who point to unexplained discrepancies in the results of Kelly’s post-mortem. They suggest that neither the wound to his left wrist nor the drugs found in his body was sufficient to kill him. The BBC has also spoken to legal experts who say the Hutton inquiry was a poor substitute for an inquest and that a coroner should now be asked to record a verdict on how Kelly died. CLIP
Foreign Sales by U.S. Arms Makers Doubled in a Yearn (November 11, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/11/business/11military.html?ref=business
Sales of military weapons by United States contractors to foreign governments doubled in the last year, as countries like Pakistan, Australia and Greece stepped up purchases of armaments and the United States government loosened policies to allow more American weapons to be sold on the world market. A total of $21 billion in arms sales agreements were signed from September 2005 to September 2006, compared with $10.6 billion in the previous year, according to new data compiled by the Pentagon. Foreign military sales agreements have typically ranged from $10 billion to $13 billion a year since 2001. A number of factors are behind the surge in sales. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has used arms sales as a way to reward allies and cement international relationships. Middle Eastern countries, flush with oil revenues, have become big buyers. Countries like India, Pakistan and Indonesia that were once barred from buying American weapons have had those bans lifted, and some have placed big orders. For military contractors, the sales have provided a welcome source of new revenue at a time when the Pentagon has indicated that the era of record military budgets is ending. CLIP
How AIDS and Starvation Condemn Zimbabwe's Women to Early Grave
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/111706WA.shtml
Zimbabwe has found itself at the nexus of an AIDS pandemic, a food crisis and an economic meltdown that is killing an estimated 3,500 people every week. That figure is more than those dying in Iraq, Darfur or Lebanon. In war-torn Afghanistan, where women's plight has received global attention, life expectancy is still above 40, while in Zimbabwe it is 34.
Clear Evidence 2006 Congressional Elections Hacked (November 17, 2006)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_rob_kall_061117_clear_evidence_2006_.htm
Results Skewed Nationwide In Favor of Republicans by 4 percent, 3 million votes - A major undercount of Democratic votes and an overcount of Republican votes in U.S. House and Senate races across the country is indicated by an analysis of national exit polling data, by the Election Defense Alliance (EDA), a national election integrity organization.These findings have led EDA to issue an urgent call for further investigation into the 2006 election results and a moratorium on deployment of all electronic election equipment."We see evidence of pervasive fraud, but apparently calibrated to political conditions existing before recent developments shifted the political landscape," said attorney Jonathan Simon, co-founder of Election Defense Alliance, "so 'the fix' turned out not to be sufficient for the actual circumstances." Explained Simon, "When you set out to rig an election, you want to do just enough to win. The greater the shift from expectations, (from exit polling, pre-election polling, demographics) the greater the risk of exposure--of provoking investigation. What was plenty to win on October 1 fell short on November 7."The findings raise urgent questions about the electoral machinery and vote counting systems used in the United States," according to Sally Castleman, National Chair of EDA. "This is a nothing less than a national indictment of the vote counting process in the United States!" "The numbers tell us there absolutely was hacking going on, just not enough to overcome the size of the actual turnout. The tide turned so much in the last few weeks before the eleciton. It looks for all the world that they'd already figured out the percentage they needed to rig, when the programming of the vote rigging software was distributed weeks before the election, and it wasn't enough," Castleman commented. CLIP
Truths Exposed
http://www.revsophia.com/exposed.htm
Critical info and sound advises by Rev. Sophia on the following topics: - Air Fresheners - Chlorine - Lymphatic - Alzheimer's - Cold/Flu - Salt - Antiperspirant Colon- Health - Teflon - Bras - Fluoride - Water. Here is a sample: Fluoride...
Be sure that you’re not brushing your teeth with fluoride (Check your toothpaste). Fluoride is rat poison. It does not prevent cavities! In addition fluoride is in our tap water, so I distill my water. Distilling water actually kills every thing even the important minerals. So I use the prill beads, (you can great about prill beads on G.L.N. I have provided a link) and sunlight to put the light force back in the water. Using sunlight to put the light-force back in; take a glass bottle, and it must be glass, place it in the sunlight for about seven hours. I have copied this from a newsletter, please open your minds, and brace your self! The new piece is titled "National Fluoride Database Launched by USDA," located at http://www.rense.com/general60/nationalflouridedatabase.htm
She writes: “Now, with Americans thoroughly riddled with fluoride due to a sixty-year-old medical experiment that never produced its promised results - now, with most of the entire nation currently suffering from gastrointestinal complaints, mood and sleep disturbances, bizarre aches and pains, elevated blood pressure, bone density problems, cancers, heart problems, liver problems, kidney problems, dental problems, thyroid problems and obesity, attention is finally being paid to the cumulative effects of fluoridating the water supply." You know, this is much more than some abstruse health story. The fluoride issue, which reverberates throughout the food chain, is really about blunting the process of evolution, about dulling the minds of billions of people and depriving them of their rightful hopes of having brilliant, evolved minds, and leading a new world into a bright and hopeful future. This was all sacrificed for a plan by evil rich men to dispose of a nuclear waste product and turn a vicious but hefty profit in their devil's bargain. Maybe the United States did not win World War II. Maybe, with the deployment of fluoride and radioactive substances into our air and food chain, the losers of that war made a last-ditch attempt at an evil last laugh with two doomsday substances that guarantee a future of slavery and sickness rather than the bright hope of a just and happy society. There are steps that I take to minimize the effects of poisons in the water. I use a carbon, shower filter, the skin is our largest organ, and it’s critical to know that when someone takes a hot steamy shower with tap water, they are inviting many health challenges. It’s not only the fluoride; another thing in our tap water is chlorine. We absorb far more chlorine in a shower than we do from chlorinated drinking water. Chlorine in the shower bonds to the protein in your hair and skin, destroying the natural ecological balance, and making your skin flaky and itchy.
UN climate pact unlikely under Bush, analysts say (November 19, 2006)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/11/19/un_climate_pact_unlikely_under_bush_analysts_say/
Reuters | NAIROBI -- UN climate talks last week kept a plan for fighting global warming on track for expansion beyond 2012, but breakthroughs appeared unlikely before President Bush steps down, specialists said yesterday. "Everyone is waiting for the United States," said Paal Prestrud, head of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo. The United States is the biggest source of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, and Bush's decision to reject caps under the UN's Kyoto Protocol discourages involvement by big- polluting outsiders such as China and India. After two weeks of talks, about 70 environment ministers in Nairobi agreed on Friday to a 2008 review of Kyoto as a possible prelude to deeper emission cuts by rich nations beyond 2012 and steps by developing countries to brake emissions. Bush is scheduled to leave office in 2009. They also agreed to modest plans to help Africa adapt to the feared effects of climate change such as drought, storms, disease, and rising seas. Ministers agreed to promote green technologies, such as wind or solar power, in the poorest continent. Many, however, said work on extending Kyoto was too sluggish. Investors in such facilities as coal-burning power plants need years to plan. Kyoto obliges 35 rich nations to cut emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012." Global emissions will have to be halved by mid-century if we are to have a chance of keeping climate change within tolerable limits," said the European commissioner, Stavros Dimas. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying caps would cost jobs and the plan wrongly omitted targets for poor countries. "The president is very committed to the policy and strategy which he has set forth," said Paula Dobriansky, an undersecretary of state.
Ought of Africa: A report from the U.N. climate conference (18 Nov 2006)
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/18/204940/05
(...) No continent is as vulnerable to climate disruption as Africa, and none harbors more poverty. That's why it's been a big deal to African nations that the 12th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change was held for the first time in sub-Saharan Africa. Many African nations sent large delegations. African luminaries like Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan shed light on the plight of Africans in the face of global climate change. Environmental groups presented papers on threats to the continent. In the end, though, the conference generated the usual flood of words and paper, and a near-drought of immediate action on dealing with climate change. Denmark and France, along with many international observers, led the way in outlining what this meeting needed to accomplish: the establishment of firm plans to continue past 2012 (when the Kyoto Protocol expires), to reduce emissions in much more significant amounts in years after that, and to ensure that the ongoing process is seamless with current procedures. Financial underwriting and investments which will reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars may be undercut if there is a gap after 2012, not to mention the loss of what little momentum there is on actually solving the huge climate issue. Considering how slowly the negotiation process moves, observers urged strong commitment at this meeting so that a plan could be officially agreed to over the next two conferences.Late on Friday, the final day, the conference agreed to a 2008 review of the Kyoto Protocol, to allow for its strengthening and continuation. But the 39 nations that are the heaviest polluters within Kyoto could not agree how to set deeper cuts; they will continue talking about it next year, and they promised there would be no gap in commitments after 2012. (Notably missing from this are the U.S. and Australia, which did not ratify the Protocol, and China, which was considered a developing country at the time the Protocol was set up and has no set reduction targets.)Several environmental groups here, displeased at this lack of action, did note that for the first time the conference acknowledged in writing reports by the U.N.'s scientific body that emissions must be reduced by half to start bringing global warming under control. The Kyoto rules now require only average reductions of 5 percent below 1990 levels from the developed countries. CLIP
Many more related articles through http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=ca&q=UN+climate+Nairobi&btnG=Search+News
Nobel Laureates Back Case Pushing Bush to Act on Global Warming
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/112006EA.shtml
Environmentalists concerned about global warming want the US Supreme Court to turn up the heat on President George Bush. The justices, taking their first plunge into the debate over emissions that scientists blame for increasing the Earth's temperature, will hear arguments November 29 in a case brought by conservation groups and 12 states. Their goal is to force Bush's Environmental Protection Agency to regulate so-called greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and trucks.
Action Alert: U.S. Supreme Court Must Rule for Carbon Regulation (November 21, 2006)
http://www.climateark.org/alerts/send.asp?id=supreme_court_climate
With a decade to avert global warming catastrophe, let the U.S. Supreme Court know carbon dioxide is clearly by both science and law a pollutant, causing climate change mayhem, and as such must be regulated - even if it means given lack of political leadership "legislating from the bench." Will this institution decide the fate of the Earth? In one of the most important environmental cases ever to come before the U.S. Supreme Court, climate change and the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions will be ruled upon by the nation's highest court for the first time. In essence, the case will put the evidence for climate change "on trial" to determine whether the available data are enough to say that CO2 emissions pose a threat to the public's wellbeing. CLIP
INTERVIEW - World has under decade to act on climate crisis (21 Nov 2006)
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L21794788&WTmodLoc=World-R5-Alertnet-3
LONDON (Reuters) - The world has less than a decade to take decisive action in the battle to beat global warming or risk irreversible change that will tip the planet towards catastrophe, a leading U.S. climate scientist said on Tuesday.And the United States, the world' biggest polluter but major climate laggard, has a vital role to play in leading that fight, James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters on a visit to London. "The biggest problem is that the United States is not taking an active leadership role -- quite the reverse," he said. "We have to be on a fundamentally different path within a decade," said the man who earlier this year caused an outcry when he revealed that scientific warnings on the climate crisis were being rewritten by White House officials. He said reliance on -- and growing use of -- fossil fuels like coal both in the United States and in boom economy China had to be stopped and reversed to avoid the planet's climate tipping into catastrophe with floods, droughts and famines. CLIP
Slow Talks Could Leave Climate Deal in "Tatters"
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/112006EB.shtml
A new global agreement to tackle climate change may be scuppered by cumbersome international bodies and a lack of political will, David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, fears.
Could smog protect against global warming? (Nov 16, 2006) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003433914_webwarming16.html
NAIROBI, Kenya — If the sun warms the Earth too dangerously, the time may come to draw the shade.The ''shade'' would be a layer of pollution deliberately spewed into the atmosphere to help cool the planet. This over-the-top idea comes from prominent scientists, among them a Nobel laureate. The reaction here at the U.N. conference on climate change is a mix of caution, curiosity and some resignation to such ''massive and drastic'' operations, as the chief U.N. climatologist describes them. The Nobel Prize-winning scientist who first made the proposal is himself ''not enthusiastic about it.''''It was meant to startle the policy makers,'' said Paul J. Crutzen, of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. ''If they don't take action much more strongly than they have in the past, then in the end we have to do experiments like this.'' Serious people are taking Crutzen's idea seriously. This weekend, NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., hosts a closed-door, high-level workshop on the global haze proposal and other ''geoengineering'' ideas for fending off climate change. In Nairobi, meanwhile, hundreds of delegates were wrapping up a two-week conference expected to only slowly advance efforts to rein in greenhouse gases blamed for much of the 1-degree rise in global temperatures in the past century. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol requires modest emission cutbacks by industrial countries — but not the United States, the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, because it rejected the deal. Talks on what to do after Kyoto expires in 2012 are all but bogged down. CLIP
Global warming already killing species, analysis says (November 21, 2006)
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/11/21/climate.species.ap/
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Animal and plant species have begun dying off or changing sooner than predicted because of global warming, a review of hundreds of research studies contends.These fast-moving adaptations come as a surprise even to biologists and ecologists because they are occurring so rapidly.At least 70 species of frogs, mostly mountain-dwellers that had nowhere to go to escape the creeping heat, have gone extinct because of climate change, the analysis says. It also reports that between 100 and 200 other cold-dependent animal species, such as penguins and polar bears are in deep trouble. "We are finally seeing species going extinct," said University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan, author of the study. "Now we've got the evidence. It's here. It's real. This is not just biologists' intuition. It's what's happening." Her review of 866 scientific studies is summed up in the journal Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics.Parmesan reports seeing trends of animal populations moving northward if they can, of species adapting slightly because of climate change, of plants blooming earlier, and of an increase in pests and parasites. Parmesan and others have been predicting such changes for years, but even she was surprised to find evidence that it's already happening; she figured it would be another decade away. Just five years ago biologists, though not complacent, figured the harmful biological effects of global warming were much farther down the road, said Douglas Futuyma, professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York in Stony Brook."I feel as though we are staring crisis in the face," Futuyma said. "It's not just down the road somewhere. It is just hurtling toward us. Anyone who is 10 years old right now is going to be facing a very different and frightening world by the time that they are 50 or 60." CLIP
Climate: A Matter for Economists
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112106H.shtml
Stephane Foucart argues that economists' attention to global warming can only have a salutary impact on discussions of the issue, as economic calculations make the dislocations associated with global warming tangible and real to those politicians who seem to have so much difficulty imagining their scope.
Global Carbon Emissions Soaring 'Out of Control' (November 10, 2006)
http://www.climateark.org/blog/2006/11/global_carbon_emissions_soarin.asp
The journal Nature reports "Global carbon emissions are now growing by 3.2% a year... That's four times higher than the average annual growth of 0.8% from 1990-99... We are not on any of the stabilization paths." [more | more2] We are well beyond Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections of the emissions levels needed to prevent damaging climate change. International negotiations are lagging. China currently contributes some 16% to global emissions, but accounts for 40% of the growth in world emissions. What in the hell is going on here? Clearly humanity as a whole must start acting soon -- it's urgent. It's beyond urgent. It is life threatening. The greatest test of humanity ever. Without immediately placing all intellectual, financial and societal resources at the disposal of those studying climate change science, developing sufficient policy responses, and those advocating for the necessary social change; the Earth is going to burn. All countries must in earnest participate in negotiations to set mandatory carbon emission caps for each nation based upon many factors including each country's wealth, past emissions, and potential to grow uncontrollably. We need to start yesterday, and the U.S. and Australia must end their criminal defense of fossil fuels.
Global warming may wipe out most birds
http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1787976.htm?enviro
Nearly three quarters of all bird species in northeast Australia and more than a third in Europe could become extinct unless efforts to stop global warming are stepped up, a report says.
Scientists: Climate Change Fueling Fires (Nov 14, 2006)
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/111406EB.shtml
San Diego - Global warming could stoke ferocious wildfires that will be more difficult and costly to fight and might drastically alter the environment in parts of the world, some scientists warn. Approximately 1,000 scientists and forestry officials who gathered in San Diego for an international wildfire meeting that began Monday urged policymakers to consider the effects of global warming when managing wildfires. The wildfire season that just ended in the US was the most severe - and expensive - on record with more than 89,000 fires scorching 9.5 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The US Forest Service spent $1.5 billion fighting those fires - about $100 million over budget. Wildfire season typically peaks in late summer and early fall. Climate change is already being blamed for a longer fire season and some even predict the possibility of a year-round fire season. "We may need to go to a more permanent work force to manage fires," said Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of the nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. Future fires, the scientists warned, could drastically alter the land and convert vegetation from one type to another. That, in turn, could put native animals and plants at risk of extinction. Increased wildfires also could adversely affect the planet. Wildfires emit tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to planet-warming greenhouse gases.CLIP
Call for Deep-Sea Trawling Ban
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/2942335/
Scientists have called for a worldwide ban on deep-sea trawling following a major UN-backed report on the damage it is causing to vulnerable deep-sea corals.
Violence continues in Darfur : BBC Video Report
http://tinyurl.com/wvauy
Militia violence in Darfur, a region where more than 200,000 people have died in years of conflict, is still occurring.
Omega-News Collection 18. November 2006
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/2950634/
1.
I BELIEVE THE RECORDER'S PERSONAL STORY OF HOW SHE WAS PREPARED FOR THIS MISSION AND HOW IT MANIFESTED IS AN IMPORTANT ONE TO SHARE WITH EVERYONE (with her permission). IF YOU HAVE NOT YET EXPLORED THESE AMAZING TEACHINGS, YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THEM FROM http://www.christsway.co.za/
From: "christsway" (christsway@mweb.co.za)
Subject: RE e.mail from Craig Cumming in Big Scoop Series #15
Date: 14 Nov 2006
Dear Jean
Thank you so much for printing Craig Cumming's e.mail regarding 'A Course in Miracles' and CHRIST'S LETTERS. I am truly delighted to have CHRIST'S LETTERS mentioned with the 'Course in Miracles' as I know it is a publication having enormous standing in the minds of spiritual seekers.
I thought you might be interested in what I wrote to Craig:
Dear Craig
Thank you so much for the wonderful pieces you have contributed to Jean Hudon's instructive Bulletins, giving people the inside story of political self-serving strategies but also strongly encouraging people to pursue a spiritual means to combat the wrongdoing, - and also to read CHRIST'S LETTERS for spiritual re-birth and growth.
I am also most grateful that you linked CHRIST'S LETTERS with A Course in Miracles. I believe they do belong together. Because several people have written to ask me my opinion of them, I am printing below what I have written in reply:
“No one could have written the Course in Miracles from their own limited consciousness. The writer could only have been inspired and strengthened spiritually to do so, by the Highest Source of Truth. But, it should be remembered, that every mind which is filled with spiritual direction and power, is humanly different from another. The inspirational perceptions and insight come through a mind with its own history of belief and experience and these colour what is received intuitively.”
In my own case, before any instruction took place, I was led through experiences which de-programmed my mind of all vestiges of religious belief. Then I was enlightened. Then I was made to live that enlightenment for six years in utter faith and trust, proving what I had learnt spiritually. Then Christ came and spoke to me for an hour and led me through Cosmic Consciousness followed by spiritual work and healing. He led me through the sciences of the material world. Then there was a long period of darkness during which my ego was broken up - then there was a long period of healing and putting me back together according to Christ's teachings. I saw him twice. Was healed of different physical illness instantaneously three times. Finally, in 1999, Christ began to dictate to me by internal Voice. I was in no doubt whatever. And there were other signs at various times, confirming the event. I was 81-2 years old, and sometimes needed some strong morale boosting which Christ always gave me.'
I am so very happy to be associated with the Course in Miracles since I know the books have brought hope and new insight and joy to so many, many people seeking Truth in its most uplifting form.
This has been a long, long journey for me in almost total seclusion and anonymity, loved by a few friends who believed in CHRIST'S LETTERS implicitly - having seen the changes in myself as I lived CHRIST'S WAY.
Who I am, what my name is, is of no consequence whatever, only that, out of total anonymity, due to the spiritual insight of a few people, CHRIST'S LETTERS are at last reaching people who can appreciate them, more widely.
When I launched the website in December 2001, almost five years ago, I took the acorn as my emblem - I saw it growing into the great oak tree offering shelter from storms and a place to build a new spiritual home in a new spiritual climate. I am now seeing this vision coming into being.
I am being assisted by wonderful people like yourself who have been instrumental in bringing CHRIST'S LETTERS to public attention where they will be well received and adopted as a code of daily living.
I am so grateful, Craig, and I know you have done this because you have the insight to see what the LETTERS can do for the world, and have been inspired by the AUTHOR of the LETTERS to do so.
With all love - and may you experience every JOY in the LIGHT
Recorder
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Were you able to join in the Conference Calls? Valerie tried to get through but was not successful. As for me, I have had physical difficulties, but think that I am, at last, receiving helpful treatment for a heart condition, result of the scoliosis - and have also felt the Power and seen the Light and am feeling rejuvenated. I have a vision of me visiting America and it feels so real.
Your compilations - Bulletins - are wonderful - I am enjoying them. Thank you so much for your hard work.
With love and friendship
Recorder
2.
Forwarded by "Stephanie Sutton" (ssutton@phisciences.com) on November 17
Call on your senator to oppose the U.S.-India nuclear deal
Incredibly enough, the Bush Administration is trying to secure Senate approval as early as this week for a nuke deal that will reward India’s nuclear ambitions, and encourage an arms race in Asia.
Even though stopping the spread of nuclear weapons is a critical priority for all governments and every sane person in the world, the deal with India would allow them to build up to 50 nuclear weapons every year - even though India has repeatedly refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
A vote in the lame duck Senate could happen as early as this week. Click here for a toll free number and information to call you senators TODAY, and tell them to stop this madness! (And if you don't see this email until Wednesday, we still urge you to make the calls to your senators - the recent election has put almost everything in flux and we can't be 100% sure when this vote is coming up.)
The nuclear deal with India is yet one more aspect of the Bush Administration’s wildly incoherent policies on nuclear weapons proliferation: we invade Iraq over phantom nuclear weapons, threaten Iran with military attacks for processing uranium, wink at Israel’s nuclear arsenal, give barely a slap on the wrist to Pakistan's veritable nuclear Wal-Mart, and now reward India for building nuclear weapons and refusing to sign nuclear treaties.
Not only has India refused to sign the NPT, it has conducted nuclear tests and refuses to reduce or cap its nuclear arsenal in any way. It is one of the few countries that has used "peaceful" nuclear technology to create nuclear bombs, precisely what we must prevent from happening. Approving this agreement would be one of the hugest mistakes this lame duck Senate could make - but with enough opposition in the Senate - which ultimately means opposition from you, the American public - we can still stop it.
Click here to call your senators and stop the India nuke deal.
It’s also critically important that the India nuke deal will provide sweeping exceptions to long-standing U.S. laws that prohibit trade in nuclear technology with countries building nuclear weapons. The deal will encourage nuclear weapons production at precisely the time when the global framework to prevent the spread of such weapons is under grave assault.
You have done fantastic work leading up to last week’s election, and soon we will have a new Congress to work with. But we cannot let up our efforts while we wait for that new Congress, and if we are going to contain the spread of nuclear weapons I urge everyone of you to call your senators today and tell them in no uncertain terms - stop the India nuke deal! And then let your friends know, and ask them to call as well!
Sincerely,
Kevin M. Martin
Executive Director
Peace Action Education Fund
p.s. - Please help stop this lame duck deal that threatens to upset all global norms against nuclear weapons proliferation - call your senators today and tell them - no nuke deal for India!
Visit also http://www.Peace-Action.org for more details.
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Related article:
Pakistan Tests Nuclear-Capable Missile
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111706L.shtml
Pakistan said it successfully test-fired a new version of its nuclear-capable medium-range missile Thursday, a show of power a day after peace talks with India that were criticized by domestic hard-liners.
Official Says US May Mull Pre-Emptive Iran Strike
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111606G.shtml
The United States or other countries will one day be forced to consider pre-emptive action if Iran and North Korea continue to seek nuclear weapons, a senior US government official said on Tuesday.
Bush Assures Israel Iran Seen As Threat
http://tinyurl.com/vvrpm
Visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will return to his country with reassurances from the Bush administration that it is not backing down from its view that Iran and its nuclear program are a world threat.
Iran announces intent to move away from U.S. dollar
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52977
Iran may have signed a virtual "death warrant" by openly declaring a governmental decision to move away from the dollar in the country's foreign-exchange transactions, says WND columnist Jerome Corsi
Ex-Iranian president warns U-S against invading
http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=5697223
It would be "dangerous" for the U-S to think it can do in Iran what it's done in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Russia implementing arms contract with Iran - official
http://tinyurl.com/ssnn2
Russia is going ahead with a contract to deliver sophisticated air defence systems to Iran, a Russian defence ministry official said, despite appeals from Washington to reconsider
What Ted Koppel Found In Iran - 5 Minute Video
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15647.htm
3.
POWERFUL EXAMPLE BY 3 COURAGEOUS HUMAN BEINGS DEEPLY COMMITTED TO PEACE...
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111706C.shtml
Prison for Anti-Nuke Clowns, US WMDs Protected
By Bill Quigley
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
17 November 2006
Three men protesting the presence of weapons of mass destruction in North Dakota were sentenced to federal prison terms of over three years and ordered to pay $17,000 in restitution by a federal judge in Bismarck. The three dressed as clowns and went to the Echo-9 launch site of the intercontinental Minuteman III nuclear missile in rural North Dakota in June 2006. They broke the lock off the fence and put up peace banners and posters. One said: "Swords into plowshares - Spears into pruning hooks." They poured some of their own blood on the site, hammered on the nuclear launching facility and waited to be arrested.
The Minuteman III missile has over 20 times the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and can reach a target within 6000 miles in 35 minutes. The men called their action the "Weapons of Mass Destruction Here Plowshares."
Dressed in faded, black-striped prison uniforms and blue cloth slippers, they appeared before the federal court for sentencing. Father Carl Kabat, 73, a Catholic priest from St. Louis with a life-long history of resistance to nuclear weapons, was sentenced to 15 months in prison. Greg Boetje-Obed, 52, a former Navy officer living with his family in the Catholic Worker community in Duluth Minnesota, was given a 12 month and one day prison sentence. Michael Walli, 58, also with the Loaves and Fishes Catholic Workers in Duluth, received 8 months. All were ordered to pay $17,000 restitution.
During their trial, the men openly admitted to trying to disarm the nuclear weapon. They pointed out to the jury that each one of these missiles was a devastating weapon of mass destruction, a killing machine precisely designed to murder hundreds of thousands. Testimony by experts about the illegality of these weapons of mass destruction under international law, and their effects, were excluded by the court and never heard by the jury.
The 40-ton Minuteman III site they damaged lies deep in rural North Dakota, at a site called Echo-9 about 100 miles north of Bismarck. Coiled beneath the surface of a bland concrete bunker, it is clearly visible from the gravel road. In fact, the otherwise pastoral countryside of farms and silos is full of nuclear weapon silos. One nuclear weapon launching site lies just across the road from a big farmhouse, another just down the road from a camp for teens. There are 150 other such nuclear launching facilities in North Dakota alone.
At the sentencing, Father Carl Kabat, who has already spent 16 years in prison for peace protests, spoke simply and directly to the court and prosecutor. "I believe that you, brother judge and brother prosecutor, know that the Minuteman III at E-9 is insane, immoral and illegal, but your actions protected that insanity, that immorality and that illegality. Brother judge, you could have possibly been a Rosa Parks, but your actions said 'no.' We all can openly and publicly condemn North Korea for nuclear bombs. We can openly and publicly condemn Iraq for nuclear weapons and go to war with them. We can openly and publicly condemn Iran for nuclear buildup, but we do not publicly condemn the United States for the same?"
Father Kabat then challenged all of us, "What is the use of postmarking our mail with exhortations to 'Pray for Peace,' and then spending billions of dollars on atomic-armed submarines, thermonuclear weapons and ballistic missiles?"
Michael Walli reaffirmed his continuing conviction of the illegality and immorality of these weapons. He pointed out that Irish courts allowed juries to hear about international law. Recently, after learning that US jets were stopping at Shannon Airport to refuel on their way to bomb Iraq, the Pitstop Plowshares went onto the runway, poured their blood on it and started to take up the tarmac to prevent additional flights. After two mistrials, these peace protestors were acquitted on all counts earlier this year by an Irish jury who heard an expert on international law and other witnesses explain the illegality of the US actions. To conclude his sentencing statement, the Peace Prayer of St. Francis was read into the record.
Greg Boetje-Obed appealed to the judge to consider the testimony of the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki about the horrific effects of a tiny nuclear weapon on their communities, testimony the court would not allow the jury to hear. He asked the judge to re-consider expert testimony from Professor Francis Boyle about the criminality of nuclear weapons under international law and the UN resolutions calling for nuclear disarmament, evidence also kept from the jury.
The judge challenged Greg Boertje-Obed's decision to take actions that risked a year in prison instead of staying home with his family. "Why would one leave a wife and daughter at home to engage in juvenile acts of vandalism to protest nuclear weapons? I would think your commitment to your family should far outweigh your calling to such actions." Greg's wife, Michelle Naar Obed, was in the courtroom during this exchange. After the sentencing was over, Michelle shook her head and said, "If Greg had left us his for a year and risked his life to go to war to kill people, no one would question him - they would call him a hero! But, because he risked time in jail to act out his convictions for peace, people question his commitment to his family. That is a tragedy."
What does it say about our society that personal sacrifices to go to war, to kill people in war, are praised, while personal sacrifices for peace are condemned? What does it say that intentional destruction of cities and communities and families and individuals are considered totally legal, while actions trying to dismantle weapons of mass destruction send people to prison? Until those interested in peace are willing to make the same sacrifices as those interested in war, peace will not prevail. These three men have proven they are willing to pay the price for peace. Their courage and sacrifice challenge us all.
While these men serve their time in prison, one hundred fifty weapons of mass destruction sit peacefully free and protected in the fields of North Dakota. The law protects these weapons and finds those who try to protect the world from their holocaust criminals. If the weapons are ever used, the people of North Dakota will not need the news to tell them. The thunderous, fiery launch of these weapons will signal the failure of justice and the end of life as we know it.
For more information about the men, contact the Loaves and Fishes Community in Duluth at 218.728.0629, or Nukewatch at 715.472.4185. Copies of some pleadings in the case, pictures, updates and addresses for the men are posted on the Jonah House web site http://www.jonahhouse.org
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Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University, New Orleans. He helped the defendants in their trial. He can be reached at Quigley@loyno.edu
4.
From: http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2006/Update61.htm
THE EARTH IS SHRINKING: Advancing Deserts and Rising Seas Squeezing Civilization
Lester R. Brown - November 15, 2006
Our early twenty-first century civilization is being squeezed between advancing deserts and rising seas. Measured by the land area that can support human habitation, the earth is shrinking. Mounting population densities, once generated solely by the addition of over 70 million people per year, are now also fueled by the relentless advance of deserts and the rise in sea level.
The newly established trends of expanding deserts and rising seas are both of human origin. The former is primarily the result of overstocking grasslands and overplowing land. Rising seas result from temperature increases set in motion by carbon released from the burning of fossil fuels.
The heavy losses of territory to advancing deserts in China and Nigeria, the most populous countries in Asia and Africa respectively, illustrate the trends for scores of other countries. China is not only losing productive land to deserts, but it is doing so at an accelerating rate. From 1950 to 1975 China lost an average of 600 square miles of land (1,560 square kilometers) to desert each year. By 2000, nearly 1,400 square miles were going to desert annually.
A U.S. Embassy report entitled “Desert Mergers and Acquisitions” describes satellite images that show two deserts in north-central China expanding and merging to form a single, larger desert overlapping Inner Mongolia and Gansu provinces. To the west in Xinjiang Province, two even larger deserts--the Taklimakan and Kumtag--are also heading for a merger. Further east, the Gobi Desert has marched to within 150 miles (241 kilometers) of Beijing, alarming China’s leaders. Chinese scientists report that over the last half-century, some 24,000 villages in northern and western China were abandoned or partly depopulated as they were overrun by drifting sand.
All the countries in central Asia--Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--are losing land to desertification. Kazakhstan, site of the vast Soviet Virgin Lands Project, has abandoned nearly half of its cropland since 1980.
In Afghanistan, a country with a Canadian-sized population of 31 million, the Registan Desert is migrating westward, encroaching on agricultural areas. A U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) team reports that “up to 100 villages have been submerged by windblown dust and sand.” In the country’s northwest, sand dunes are moving onto agricultural land, their path cleared by the loss of stabilizing vegetation from firewood gathering and overgrazing. The UNEP team observed sand dunes nearly 50 feet (15 meters) high blocking roads, forcing residents to establish new routes.
Iran, which has 70 million people and 80 million goats and sheep, the latter the source of wool for its fabled rug-making industry, is also losing its battle with the desert. Mohammad Jarian, who heads Iran’s Anti-Desertification Organization, reported in 2002 that sand storms had buried 124 villages in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, forcing their abandonment. Drifting sands had covered grazing areas, starving livestock and depriving villagers of their livelihood.
Africa, too, is plagued with expanding deserts. In the north, the Sahara Desert is pushing the populations of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria northward toward the Mediterranean. In a desperate effort to halt the advancing Sahara, Algeria is geographically restructuring its agriculture, replacing grain in the south with orchards and vineyards.
On the southern edge of the Sahara, in the vast east-to-west swath of semiarid Africa between the Sahara Desert and the forested regions to the south lies the Sahel--a semiarid region where herding and farming overlap. In countries from Senegal and Mauritania in the west to Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia in the east, the demands of growing human and livestock numbers are converting land into desert. (See data at www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2006/Update61_data.htm.)
Nigeria, slightly larger than Texas, is losing 1,355 square miles of rangeland and cropland to desertification each year. While Nigeria’s human population was growing from 33 million in 1950 to 134 million in 2006, a fourfold expansion, its livestock population grew from 6 million to 66 million, an 11-fold increase. With the food needs of its people forcing the plowing of marginal land and the forage needs of livestock exceeding the carrying capacity of its grasslands, the country is slowly turning to desert. Nigeria’s fast-growing population is being squeezed into an ever-smaller area.
In Latin America, deserts are expanding in both Brazil and Mexico. In Mexico, with a large share of arid and semiarid land, the degradation of cropland now forces some 700,000 Mexicans off the land each year in search of jobs in nearby cities or in the United States. In scores of countries, the growth in human and livestock numbers that drives desertification is continuing unabated.
While deserts are now displacing millions of people, rising seas promise to displace far greater numbers in the future given the concentration of the world’s population in low-lying coastal cities and rice-growing river deltas. During the twentieth century, sea level rose by 6 inches (15 centimeters). In its 2001 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that during this century seas would rise by 4 to 35 inches. Since 2001, record-high temperatures have accelerated ice melting making it likely that the future rise in sea level will be even greater.
The earth’s rising temperature is raising sea level both through thermal expansion of the oceans and the melting of glaciers and ice sheets. Scientists are particularly concerned by the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which has accelerated sharply in recent years. If this ice sheet, a mile thick in some places, were to melt entirely it would raise sea level by 23 feet, or 7 meters.
Even a one-meter rise would inundate vast areas of low-lying coastal land, including many of the rice-growing river deltas and floodplains of India, Thailand, Viet Nam, Indonesia, and China. A World Bank map shows a one-meter rise in sea level inundating half of Bangladesh’s riceland. Some 30 million Bangladeshis would be forced to migrate, either internally or to other countries.
Hundreds of cities, including some of the world’s largest, would be at least partly inundated by a one-meter rise in sea level, including London, Alexandria, and Bangkok. More than a third of Shanghai, a city of 15 million people, would be under water. A one-meter rise combined with a 50-year storm surge would leave large portions of Lower Manhattan and the National Mall in Washington, D.C., flooded with seawater.
If the Greenland ice sheet should melt, the resulting 23-foot rise in sea level would force the abandonment of thousands of coastal cities and communities. Hundreds of millions of coastal residents would be forced to migrate inland or to other countries, spawning conflicts over land and living space. Together, rising seas and desertification will present the world with an unprecedented flow of environmental refugees--and the potential for civil strife.
During this century we must deal with the effects of the trends--rapid population growth, advancing deserts, and rising seas--that we set in motion during the last century. Growth in the human population of over 70 million per year is accompanied by a simultaneous growth of livestock populations of more than 35 million per year. The rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide that are destabilizing the earth’s climate are driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Our choice is a simple one: reverse these trends or risk being overwhelmed by them.
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Lester R. Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.
Data and additional resources at http://www.earthpolicy.org
For more in-depth information see Chapters 4-6 in Plan B 2.0, at http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm
5.
From: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1557842,00.html
TIME MAGAZINE: RUMSFELD, GONZALES, TENET, OTHERS TO BE CHARGED WITH WAR CRIMES IN GERMANY OVER ABU GHRAIB AND GITMO
ADAM ZAGORIN, TIME - Just days after his resignation, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. . .
Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: "It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld." . . .
Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides "universal jurisdiction" allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world. Indeed, a similar, but narrower, legal action was brought in Germany in 2004, which also sought the prosecution of Rumsfeld. The case provoked an angry response from Pentagon, and Rumsfeld himself was reportedly upset. Rumsfeld's spokesman at the time, Lawrence DiRita, called the case a "a big, big problem." U.S. officials made clear the case could adversely impact U.S.-Germany relations, and Rumsfeld indicated he would not attend a major security conference in Munich, where he was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, unless Germany disposed of the case. The day before the conference, a German prosecutor announced he would not pursue the matter, saying there was no indication that U.S. authorities and courts would not deal with allegations in the complaint.
In bringing the new case, however, the plaintiffs argue that circumstances have changed in two important ways. Rumsfeld's resignation, they say, means that the former Defense Secretary will lose the legal immunity usually accorded high government officials. Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the German prosecutor's reasoning for rejecting the previous case that U.S. authorities were dealing with the issue has been proven wrong.
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Related articles:
War Crimes Suit Filed Against Rumsfeld in Germany (11/14/06)
http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3453&Itemid=220
An international grouping of lawyers has filed a 220-page lawsuit, calling on German prosecutors to investigate Donald Rumsfeld for sanctioning torture. The complaint asks Germany's federal prosecutor Monika Harms to open an investigation and criminal prosecution that will examine the responsibility of high ranking US officials in the authorization of war crimes in the context of the so-called "War on Terror." The suit is being brought on behalf of 11 detainees from Abu Ghraib and 1 detainee from Guantanamo Bay. The detainees, under the control of the US military, suffered electric shock, severe beatings, sleep and food deprivation, and sexual abuse. German law allows the pursuit of war crimes cases regardless of where in the world they occur. Torture Suit Star Witness, Former. Abu Ghraib Head Janis Karpinski Points to Signed Rumsfeld Memo Listing Harsh Interrogation Techniques read or listen - The Center for Constitutional Rights: Please join our effort! The letter appears below, first in German and then in English. The German Prosecutor has discretion to decide whether to initiate an investigation. It is critical that he hear from you so he knows that people around the world support this effort.
You can lend popular weight to this case by registering your support at http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/GermanCase2006/germancase.asp
Your voice is needed to charge Rumsfeld with War Crimes! The German Prosecutor has discretion to decide whether to initiate an investigation. It is critical that you write to her so she knows that people around the world support this effort. Please urge the German Prosecutor to open an investigation into this case. Please step up to the plate and do the right thing, and pass this on to your e-mail lists.
View a slide show of Columbian artist Fernando Botero's new series of paintings of the torture endured by Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. A lawsuit on behalf of 12 former detainees against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes committed at Abu Ghraib was turned in to a German prosecutor on Tuesday. http://www.slate.com/id/2153674/
Rumsfeld OK'd Dog Scares, Strips
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/23/iraq/main625525.shtml
Newly-released documents on U.S. policy of torturing prisoners show that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized guards to strip detainees and threaten them with dogs.
Ex-prisoner tells of torture at Guantanamo
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20757477-23109,00.html
A GERMAN, who was held for four years in the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, has alleged systematic torture in the hands of the US military, from beatings to being chained to a ceiling for days.
6.
Recommended by Phyllis Montague (phyllism5@juno.com) who wrote: “Important wake up call...” GO AT THE URL BELOW TO WATCH THE 2 VIDEOS AND PONDER THEIR SIGNIFICANCE...
From: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/161106torturedid.htm
Americans To Be Tortured For Refusing To Show ID?
Student shocked, tortured for defending constitutional rights
Paul Joseph Watson
November 16, 2006
A horror video that wouldn't look out of place in Maoist China or Nazi Germany shows a student being repeatedly shot with a stun gun by UCLA police for the crime of not showing his ID. As similar cases begin to pile up how long will it be before Americans are routinely tortured for noncompliance and refusing to have their 4th amendment violated?
"A cell phone captured video of a 23-year-old student being administered multiple Taser shocks by UCLA police on Tuesday. The UCLA student was hit with the Taser shocks multiple times while he was in the Powell Library Computer Lab. According to the paper, (Mostafa) Tabatabainejad did not show ID to community service officers who were conducting a random check," reports NBC.
Watch the video above and witness as the cops bark at Tabatabainejad to get to his feet as simultaneously shock him over and over until he begins crying and screaming for them to stop.
Police are given extensive training on the use of stun guns and in most cases that training involves taking a taser shot and feeling the effects. Depending on each individual's physiology, it takes at least a minute to be able to even stand after a single Taser shot. Over a hundred deaths have occurred in America as a result of taser shocks and Taser's own manual discourages repeated shocks, yet the history of their use tells us that police simply administer repeated shocks until "compliance is gained." This is a euphemism for torture.
The video and the eyewitness reports describe multiple taser shots as Tabatabainejad begs and pleads while at one point screaming, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your f---ing abuse of power."
The officers repeatedly order Tabatabainejad to stand even as they administer further shocks - sending 50,000 volts of current that override the nervous system and temporarily paralyze muscles shooting through his system again and again. He can't stand and the cops know it, they just get off on the maniacal ego power trip of torture and this is why Tabatabainejad is hit again and again despite his screaming and the protests of the onlookers.
Similar cases abound in the so-called land of the free, including the video above in which a housewife, Abbey Newman, is assaulted and arrested for simply refusing to tell the gestapo her name at an unconstitutional checkpoint. Another case in which an Alex Jones listener, Ferrell Montgomery, was tasered and had a dog set on him again underscores the brutal and sadistic nature of the police. Like Tabatabainejad, Montgomery was repeatedly told to put his hands behind his head and stand up while he was electric shocked and a dog savaged him for not complying.
In November 2005, Deborah Davis was reading a book on a Denver bus when a guard of a nearby federal building got on board and demanded everyone show their ID. Davis refused, leading the guard to "call on federal cops, who then dragged Davis off a pu