|
| Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Corporate Media |
| | | | |
|
Archive for the Month of August, 2005.
Viewing International Affairs NEWS articles 1 through 75 of 89.
- Plane "accidents" are America's and Britain's preferred method for disposing of unwanted leaders, especially in Africa. - A man who has held a four-year anti-war protest outside Parliament, has won a legal battle to continue his vigil. - Former Education Minister Shulamit Aloni blasts ‘megalomaniac’ Prime Minister Sharon in interview with Arab-Israeli newspaper, says he should face justice. Aloni also charges Israel a racist state that commits war crimes - The president of Venezuela charged the United States with 'meddling with the internal affairs' of Bolivia, denied U.S. charges that Venezuela and Cuba were doing so, and criticized Great Britain for 'snatching' the Malvinas [Falklands] from Argentina during its 500-year 'imperialist assault.' - Farmers in Colombia, a key U.S. ally in South America, think U.S. negotiators ask too much and give too little. - Israel would launch a massive ground operation if Palestinian militants fire on Israeli soldiers and settlers during next month's Gaza pullout, the deputy defense minister said Sunday. - The sudden appearance south of Rosh Ha'ayin of a massive army "supply base," built by the U.S. army engineering corps for the IDF with Arab workers, has raised eyebrows and suspicions about the real purpose and intended users of the massive facility.
- African Debt, War and Imperialism are Linked - President Chavez of Venezuela enjoys an approval rating of 71.8%, according to the opposition-aligned Venezuelan polling firm Datanalisis. The poll was conducted June 14 to 20 and shows a slight decline in Chavez’s popularity in other indicators, but overall his popularity is at its highest point since the honeymoon he enjoyed shortly after his first election in 1998. - While the passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement is being hailed as a breakthrough by the government, the management of El Salvador's Diario Co Latino is less enthusiastic, complaining that no one knows what's in the treaty, or how it will benefit the average person or small business. - Corruption has devastated the Lula regime in Brazil. Every sector of Lula's "Workers Party"(PT) has been implicated in bribery, fraud, vote buying, theft of public funds, failure to report illicit campaign financing and a host of other felonious behavior, revealed almost daily between May-July 2005. All of Lula's closest and most important advisers, congressional leaders and party bosses have been forced to resign and are under congressional investigation for illegal large-scale transfers of funds into electoral campaigns, private enrichment, and financing full time functionaries. - An ongoing criminal investigation in Italy has yielded copies of the minutes of meetings held at the U.S. Embassy in Rome in 1995 attended by a "Colonel Franklin" from the United States, leading Italian neo-Fascist politicians (including Deputy Prime Minister Giancarlo Fini), and Likud officials from Israel. The meetings were held to arrange for lucrative telecommunications and military contracts for Israeli companies with the U.S. government. - The Ministry of Health (MOH) declared today that 3804 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli occupation forces since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa uprising. As for, the number of the injuries, it got up to 34431.
- ...the gang’s all there—even if they’re a gaggle of tyrants and monarchs, with a handpicked puppet (Karzai) thrown in for good measure—and they are “paying respects” to an absolute monarch in an artificially created country with no recognized political parties or national elections. - This is the strange reality of Niger's hunger crisis. There is plenty of food, but children are dying because their parents cannot afford to buy it. - Chavez, a frequent critic of the U.S. government, also said he had read reports of President George W. Bush "putting money in circulation to buy votes and to blackmail, through the so-called (U.S.) intelligence agencies, to approve an initiative which is perverse."
- Ever since the Pentagon increased its covert northern African operations -- through programs known as the Pan Sahel Initiative and its replacement Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has used his virtual parallel intelligence and paramiltary force, known variably as the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG), Task Force 121, and Titrant Ranger, to engage in congressionally-unsupervised operations in the Saharan region. - If his lies had led to a military intervention in this country [Cuba], we would probably be witnessing his nomination for something like the vice presidency of the empire, instead of his designation to a diplomatic post.
- Uganda's president has said the helicopter crash that killed Sudanese First Vice-President John Garang may not have been an accident. - The Bush administration is considering taking the unprecedented step of preventing a visting head of state from addressing the United Nations in New York by denying a visa to Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran's new elected conservative president.
- Israel's regime is one of the most corrupt and least efficient in the Western world. In fact, the only developed country considered more corrupt and less efficient is Italy, according to data published by the World Bank. - Despite the government's continued denials, analysts and activists have raised the alarm over the possible installation of a U.S. military base in Paraguay, especially after Congress granted permission for U.S. armed forces contingents to remain in the country for 18 months at a time.
- 'Some international media' allied with Washington and 'the Zionist regime,' have launched a propaganda campaign. According to this article from the Tehran Times, their goal is to paint Iran's new president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, as a hardliner that will be unable to maintain friendly ties to the outside world.
- Unless the world, especially the United States, admits that non-proliferation REQUIRES its own disarmament, and accepts that nuclear weapons are reasonably seen as an insurance policy for outcast regimes, the phrase "Never Again," on everyone's lips since 1945, will prove false. - Skyrocketing global oil prices and rising demand has left China's southern business metropolis of Guangzhou so short of fuel that drivers face rationing at the pump, a state newspaper reported Friday. - by Noam Chomsky The explosions in London are a reminder of how the cycle of attack and response could escalate - Last Thursday, in a move that further cheapened the Bush administration’s already tawdry Latin American policy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the creation of a new State Department staff position to implement recommendations of the U.S. Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, a body which hopes to “accelerate the demise” of Cuban President Fidel Castro’s government. Caleb McCarry, a Republican Party warhorse, and former Vice President for the Americas program at the Center for Democracy (a USAID-funded “non-partisan” organization that works to “promote the democratic process in the United States and abroad”), as well as a veteran staffer at the House International Relations Committee, was her choice to hold the Cuba Transition Coordinator job.
- You may ask, "What does Somalia have to do with Iraq?" The answer is, "Plenty." In 1993, the United States, under the guise of a "humanitarian" mission, invaded and occupied Somalia. As with Iraq, the world's leading military superpower used its weapons to kill innocent people in their own country. - Israel describes it as a vital security barrier, while the UN says it's illegal. But as far as the guerrilla graffiti artist Banksy is concerned, the 425-mile long barrier that separates Israel from the Palestinian territories is a vast concrete canvas too tempting to resist.
- With U.S. troops currently protecting Halliburton's oil operations in Iraq and the CentGas pipeline in Afghanistan, U.S. troops are now being sent to Paraguay, complete with immunity from criminal prosecution by Paraguay or the International Criminal Court, to protect the millions of acres of Paraguayan water and land resources bought over the years by religious cult leader Sun Myung Moon. - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told thousands of visiting students that if U.S. forces were to invade the South American country, they would be soundly defeated. - The CIA asked the Netherlands not to detain Pakistani scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan for stealing nuclear secrets from a Dutch facility, former Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers has claimed.
- Reactions to Venezuelan Government’s Split with the DEA - "The DEA was using the fight against narco-trafficking as a mask to, among other things, support narco-trafficking, in order to conduct intelligence operations against the government." - The Israeli Air Force has completed military preparations for a pre-emptive strike at Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility and will attack if Russia supplies Iran with rods for enriching uranium...Israel may also choose to launch submarine-based cruise missiles from the Persian Gulf at key Iranian targets
- Haitian media organizations, quoting Solino residents, reported that machetes were being distributed out of a National Police car to individuals attached to the national police.
- The Bush administration with the support of the so-called EU-3—Britain, France and Germany—has seized on Iran’s decision to restart its uranium conversion facility at Esfahan as the pretext for condemning Tehran and threatening UN economic sanctions. Once again Washington and its allies, with the backing of the international media, are conducting a campaign of provocation and lies that will ultimately lead to open confrontation if Iran does not completely capitulate. - Candidates in parties backing President Hugo Chavez won many more seats than opposition challengers in Venezuela's local elections this week, according to preliminary results.
- In Bushzarro world, when our potentate speaks, translation is often required. For instance, when Bush fielded questions from the corporate media at the faux cowboy ranch in Crawford, he responded to a question about Iran from an Israeli public television reporter as follows: "All options are on the table."
- Gaza is the most densely populated territory on earth, where 1.4 million defenceless Palestinians huddle together in an area of about 360 square km. Gaza forms the westernmost portion of original Palestine, having land borders with Egypt on the south-west and today’s Israel on the northern and eastern borders. - The UN nuclear watchdog is preparing to publish evidence that Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons programme, undermining a warning of possible military action from President George Bush. - American citizens could be denied visas to visit Venezuela in response to a U.S. decision to revoke the visas of three Venezuelan military officers, the vice president said Friday.
- Oil exports to the US could stop amid growing tensions between the two countries, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said.
- Had it not been for the Palestinians' turn to violence, so the myth goes, we would not now have Ariel Sharon in office, there would be a satisfactory peace, there would be no killings, and so on. What the myths ignore is the "state" left to the Palestinians would have been a mere colony of Israel -- non-viable and indefensible, without borders with any state but Israel, totally at Israel's mercy.
- The beginning of the pullout of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip presents two contrasting pictures of two very differently placed people. While the Israelis are looking at comfortable compensation packages, thousands of Palestinians face the threat of starvation as a result of the Israeli pullout. - Biometric facial scans, which will be compulsory with ID cards, are to be put on a national database which can then be matched with images from CCTV. The database of faces will enable police and security services to track individuals regardless of whether they have broken the law. - A great charade is taking place in front of the world media in the Gaza Strip. It is the staged evacuation of 8000 Jewish settlers from their illegal settlement homes, and it has been carefully designed to create imagery to support Israel's US-backed takeover of the West Bank and cantonization of the Palestinians. - To the world, Chávez is a man of many faces: bold social reformer, naïve idealist, savvy economic opportunist, irresponsible fiscal rogue, democratic champion, authoritarian leader, Latin America’s savior, Washington’s worst nightmare. - Threatening a cutoff of oil exports and a break in diplomatic ties, Chavez "demanded" the release of five Cubans being held in the United States for espionage. In this article from Venezuela's La Hora newspaper, Chavez is also reported to have said, "There has never been an empire more brutal, more cruel, more cynical, more savage, more hypocritical, and more dangerous than the one led by his counterpart, George Bush."
- The tests of the highly toxic defoilants were apparently conducted at the request of the US military, which used Agent Orange to flush out communist Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam war - The recent uproar over Israeli lobbyists passing classified U.S. information to Israel is just the tip of the iceberg. According to this article from Lebanon's Dar Al-Hayat newspaper, high-level U.S. officials have been doing it for years, and continue to do so today. - China and Russia have began their first joint military exercises boosting cooperation between them and sending a message to the United States about their growing influence. - As Israeli soldiers struggle to force settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, U.S. officials are quietly looking at a $2.2 billion aid request from Israel to develop the country's Galilee and Negev regions. - The federal government will introduce legislation this fall that would give police and national security agencies new powers to eavesdrop on cellphone calls and monitor the Internet activities of Canadians, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said yesterday - President Bush on Wednesday authorized the United States to continue helping Colombian authorities ground or even shoot down planes suspected of carrying illegal drugs.
- The U.S. military is conducting secretive operations in Paraguay and reportedly building a new base there. Human rights groups and military analysts in the region believe trouble is brewing. - China has established elite police squads equipped with armoured vehicles and helicopters under orders to quell riots in a country where a protest erupts every seven minutes.
- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has promoted a closer relationship with China, India and other Asian countries in an effort to secure new markets for oil aside from its current No. 1 buyer, the United States. - Posada may also testify about his organization and training of death squads at the behest of the US government in a number of countries, including Venezuela, in Latin America. Most exciting of all, Posada may testify about the assassination in Dallas of a US president on November 22, 1963.
- Yet despite this outrage, not a single Muslim country, no ayatollah, no mufti, no king, not even a Muslim Canadian imam has dared utter a word in protest. Such is the power of Saudi influence on the Muslim narrative. - In one-on-one interview, best-selling author, John Perkins, lays it on the line about corrupt American foreign policy. - More than 50,400 Venezuelans have received eye surgery in Cuban hospitals, announced Presidents Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez during a radio and TV program aired on Sunday from Pinar del Rio, Cuba.
- President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela scoffed at US charges that he and Cuban leader Fidel Castro are destabilizing troublemakers in Latin America. - "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said. - Nearly half of Asia's 1.27 billion children live in poverty - deprived of food, safe drinking water, health or shelter.
- Venezuela's vice president has accused religious broadcaster Pat Robertson of making "terrorist statements" - The Israeli nuclear expert Mordechai Vanunu asserted that the Israeli nuclear arsenal is a threat to the entire Middle East region, calling on Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement (NNPA). - Canada's free-trade team upset by U.S. decision to ignore tariff ruling - "We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," the populist leader told reporters at the end of a visit to Communist-run Cuba.
- Escalating violence continues to make life unlivable in Haiti, with police forces and foreign "peacekeepers" contributing to the bloodshed--while those who flee to the neighboring Dominican Republic face racist attacks and mass deportations. - Connie Fogal, Leader of CAP, says " 'NO' to an impending federal law to give police and national security agencies new powers to eavesdrop on cellphone calls and monitor the Internet activities of Canadians". - The Pentagon made thinly veiled threats on Monday, suggesting US-German relations could be at risk if a criminal complaint filed in German courts over Abu Ghraib proceeds.
- Three Canadian warships were steaming through Arctic waters as Ottawa displayed a new and almost bellicose determination to protect the sovereignty of its northernmost boundaries. - The government today substantially expanded its criteria for deporting or excluding foreign nationals it believes pose a threat to the national interest.
- A crippling strike in Ecuador's oil industry has come to an end after protesters reached an agreement with the government and oil companies
Pages for August, 2005
|