|
| Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Corporate Media |
| | | | |
|
Archive for the Month of January, 2006.
Viewing International Affairs NEWS articles 1 through 75 of 111.
- Having decided it was impossible to simply ignore the tragedy, the major powers made commitments of money and personnel, not to help the victims, but to advance their own political and strategic agendas in the region. - Former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was stripped of his legal immunity Friday to face charges of diverting public funds to personal bank accounts. - The lopsided reporting is nothing new. American media, in complicity with the U.S. government, has waged a no-holds barred image war with Iran ever since it broke diplomatic relations following the Islamic Revolution. It is safe to say that approximately 99% of the media coverage of Iran over the past 25+ years has been negative, and of that, about 99% is of a political nature. - The Bush administration has sent troops into Paraguay. They are there ostensibly for humanitarian and counterterrorism purposes. The action coincides with growing left unity in South America, military buildup in the region and burgeoning independent trade relationships. - In the world's thirst for oil and the United States' efforts to obtain it outside the troubled Middle East, African oil has become essential. Africa is expected to provide the United States with a quarter of its oil supply in the next decade, compared with about 15 percent now, and much of it will come from the Gulf of Guinea, where the Niger Delta sits.
- Not only is the omnipresent "al-Qaeda" at work in Gaza...but if we are to believe Reuters and the New York Times, the custom-made (by the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI) terrorist outfit is also busy at work in Lebanon, firing missile salvos into northern Israel. - Thirty-two privately operated Venezuelan oilfields returned to state control Sunday with the start of the new year, the government said. - Israeli aircraft have struck the Gaza Strip repeatedly, targeting what the army says are roads and a building used by Palestinian resistance fighters firing rockets into the Jewish state. - "We must act as (former Prime Minister Menachem) Begin did when he bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor..." - What's so special about this spot in the sun is that it has been a locus for colonial predation for centuries on account of its rich resources.
- Words are very important. Words frame issues, palliate, mollify, exculpate or even hide sordid acts. Th(is)...list analyses a few of the prevalent words that hide or exculpate the dispossession of millions. - A U.S. air strike killed 14 members of one family in the oil refining town of Baiji in northern Iraq, an Iraqi security force spokesman said on Tuesday. - You can't have war without corruption. The history of war is inseparable from histories of corrupt power and social debasement. War attracts corruption like corpses attract flies. When a country elects "to remain on a wartime footing," the rot can get pretty deep. Americans should know all about this. - Israeli police have evidence that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's family received $3m in bribes, it has been alleged on an Israeli television channel. - by Wayne Madsen - Intelligence and military sources in the United States and abroad are reporting on various factors that indicate a U.S. military hit on Iranian nuclear and military installations, that may involve tactical nuclear weapons, is in the final stages of preparation.
- Spring exercise to turn city into "battleground" - by Michel Chossudovsky- The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran is now in the final planning stages. - The latest anti-terror advertising campaign by the London Metropolitan Police encourages the residents of London to actively spy on and report anybody, including their own neighbours, should they suspect them to be behaving in a suspicious way. - The U.S. assumed that Cuba would implode and Fidel would be gone. Then, U.S. speculators would take over the country and a new financial bonanza would be created just south of the U.S. mainland. Fairy tales are for kids.
- Each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, destroy entire peoples.
- The old and completely discredited Cuban theory is being resurrected and promoted now, at a time when the "dominoes" in Latin America keep falling into the Castro-Chavez sphere of influence, and Bush badly needs a distraction to make it through the end of his term. Are we being slowly prepared for an invasion of Cuba? - The British government has recently issued a confection of media gag orders and public denials in an attempt to keep the public in the dark over some of its alleged less than salubrious activities conducted under cover of fighting "terror."
- The elimination of the distinction between "arrestable" and “non-arrestable” offences is part of the Serious and Organised Crime Act of 2005 and came into effect January 1. - To the Arab world at large, the image of the ailing Prime Minister is solidly fixed as the "Butcher" or the "War Criminal", and the basic feeling now at the prospect of his death was that it would be a shame if he passed away peacefully in bed. - Like Siamese twins, the United States and Israel are joined at the hip, both physically and philosophically. Collectively, the United States and Israel comprise the most prolific terrorist states on earth. - The civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed 3.9 million lives, according to a study. - Venezuela has said it will expand a programme to provide cheap home heating fuel to poor Americans, helping low-income families in Vermont and Rhode Island, as well as four Indian tribes in Maine.
- Israel's Prime Minister was a ruthless military commander responsible for one of the most shocking war crimes of the 20th century, argues Robert Fisk. President George Bush acclaims Ariel Sharon as 'a man of peace', yet the blood that was shed at Sabra and Chatila remains a stain on the conscience of the Zionist nation. - Millions of people could face starvation in the Horn of Africa, the United Nations food agency has warned. - Populist Advances Economic Reforms Across Latin America - In case you thought the Bush administration's dangerous, and national-security-weakening unilateralism was just a one-time deal in Iraq, think again. - Peers are already vowing to water down the plans to ensure that registration for cards is voluntary. - "Netanyahu had on many occasions expressed his persistence to launch a military strike on Iran. “This is the Israeli government’s primary obligation," he was once quoted as saying. "If it is not done by the current government, I plan to lead the next government to stop the Iranians."
- A Conservative Total for U.S. Aid to Israel - The history of how Iran's path to nuclear proliferation began is a familiar story. - The DNA from 750,000 juveniles has been added to the national police database over the past 10 years, the Government has revealed.
- Internal Justice Dept. Document Alleges Drug Trafficking Links, Money Laundering and Conspiracy to Murder - An examination of the ramifications of such an attack is desperately in order.
- Monday’s English-language debate between Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, Conservative challenger Stephen Harper, Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois and New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton set a new standard for populist posturing, hypocrisy, and outright lying.
- In March, Britain will enhance its reputation as the surveillance capital of the West with a global first: recording the movements of all cars on the road and storing the data for at least two years. - After wiping Palestine off the map and expelling over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, confiscating the land they've lived on for generations, Israel still had a considerable Palestinian minority within its borders. Set to realize the dream of creating a state for Jews only, which had obviously failed, Apartheid laws were imposed in order to make the non-Jewish citizens of the Jewish state to leave.
- Media-Hype; beating the war drums, again - Robert Austin, an academic in Spanish and International Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT), was informed last October that he would be dismissed as of April 24, 2006. The sacking is an attack on academic freedom and sets a dangerous precedent for the victimisation of other university staff. - It’s clear that the move is one part of a complex series of Russian moves in the ongoing Grand Chess Game. That game is between Washington as sole global superpower, and Russia as a reconstructing nuclear power--one with a vast resource wealth needed by its Eurasian neighbours from China to Germany and beyond. - The United Nations argues that small arms -- including assault rifles, grenade launchers and sub-machine guns -- are primarily responsible for much of the death and destruction in conflicts throughout the world.
- Not only is the anti-Iranian propaganda based upon a brazen, historic lie but, if the western public were to know just what kind of military scenario is envisaged, would be seen as a terrifying imperial escalation in the kind of (nuclear) blitzkrieg tactics that the West and NATO are now prepared to use. - German papers for Israeli agents - There’s been alot of rubbish written about Iran’s "removing the seals" from its uranium enrichment equipment. The fear-mongering western media have exploited the expression for all its worth. Even those who are normally skeptical of the Bush-propaganda machine are taken aback by this ominous-sounding phrase.
- Furious cabinet revolt as Blair gives green light for security services to spy on elected representatives. - There are multiple reasons, he says, why Canadians should be concerned about what’s happening in Haiti. For starters, it’s largely thanks to us and our efforts to unseat Jean Bertrand Aristide’s democratically elected government that the country is currently so unstable.
- Celebrated writer Arundhati Roy on Saturday refused to accept the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award in protest against the Indian Government toeing the US line by "violently and ruthlessly pursuing policies of brutalisation of industrial workers, increasing militarisation and economic neo-liberalisation". - Up to 10,000 people reportedly protested at rallies in the largest city, Karachi. Many chanted: "Death to America!" Demonstrators demanded the resignation of Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf. Smaller protests were staged in other towns and cities, including Islamabad, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar.
- Anybody who doesn’t think control of energy sources is at the root of USUK actions in Iraq and elsewhere is suffering a serious (but hopefully treatable) delusional disease of denial. Even the most cursory exploration of the 20th century reveals the centrality of oil to pretty well every event of any significance, and in no small part goes a long way toward explaining why the corporate/state media won’t go near the subject with a length of oil-drilling pipe—except to deride the idea. - Military chiefs have told the United States that they are ready and able to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons facilities - with an attack as early as March. - Italian prosecutors investigating the killing of an Italian secret service agent at a checkpoint in Iraq plan to charge a U.S. soldier with murder and attempted murder, Italian media reported Tuesday. - Corporate Canada is intent on pursuing its drive for markets, profits and global geopolitical influence by relying on the most reactionary social and political forces to attack the jobs, living standards and democratic rights of working people at home, while joining the US-led imperialist carve-up of the world’s resources by means of militarism and war.
- Human Rights Violations, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
- As now appears obvious, the Straussian neocons will attack Iran, sooner before later. Secretary of State Condi Rice indicated as much when she said, "there’s not much to talk about" until Iran promises to stop working on a nuclear weapon, never mind that...Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon. - Police Checkpoints, stop and search, curfews and ASBO's becoming the norm. - An ever-more-desperate Dick Cheney is pulling out all the stops to install "Clean Break" hawk Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu as the next Israeli Prime Minister, to push for an immediate confrontation between Israel and Syria. - Which IRA terror operations were allowed to go ahead or were even instigated by British agents in order to foment sectarian tensions and legitimise state repression?
- Castro's Prophecy Fulfilled as Bolivia Joins Latin America's "Axis of Good" - According to State Department sources, the United States has laid down an ultimatum to Iran. However, this ultimatum has nothing to do with Iran's nuclear program. - The circumstances of the 2006 Canadian elections—12 years of uninterrupted Liberal rule, a growing sense of economic anxiety, a spate of corruption scandals—have been seized upon by Canada’s corporate elite as the long-sought opportunity to push politics far to the right. The media’s saturation coverage of the corruption issue, its unwillingness to scrutinize Conservative claims that they have adopted moderate policies, its lampooning of Prime Minster Paul Martin as a ditherer and a has-been—all are elements in a campaign aimed at bringing to power a Conservative government under Stephen Harper that will pursue closer cooperation with and, on many fronts, emulate the Bush administration. - It is wise to keep in mind that these chicken hawk sociopaths envision "World War Four" and this is precisely why they are preparing to attack Iran and inflame the Muslim Middle East—to force the reality of continual war waged against the Muslim masses on the American people, who are after all, the neocons are convinced, too soft and decadent and need above all to have war and the idea of dead relatives and neighbors foisted on them in order to toughen them up for the generations of war to come, as promised by Bush and Cheney. - Thousands of Pakistanis protested against a US airstrike targeting Al-Qaeda leaders, burning effigies of US President George Bush and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
- I hadn't realized until recently that Stephen Harper was using "God Bless Canada!" as a tagline for his speeches. Some may think this a harmless, or even beneficent, expression for a politician to use, but for those with knowledge of history, nothing could be more frightening. - San Cristobal, Mexico, January 1st 2006--Deep in the Mountains and jungles of Chiapas, populated primarily with indigenous peasants, stirs a force which is seeking to upstage the high financed drama of the 2006 Mexican presidential election. The force grows out of rebel occupied territory held by the EZLN, commonly known as the Zapatistas. - The following is a call to join Winnipeg in opposing the occupation of our city by an imperialist army, the Canadian Armed Forces. - Two Reports from the Haiti Information Project
- Whatever the results of Monday’s federal election, whichever party or combination of parties forms Canada’s next government, the coming period will see a dramatic intensification of class conflict. - It appears the Straussian neocons ensconced in the Pentagon and in the final planning stages of the shock and awe campaign against Iran, on tap for March, have a new complication to consider: - Indonesian security forces and militias they supported killed at least 100,000 East Timorese people -- and perhaps as many as 180,000 -- over 24 years through torture, starvation, arbitrary execution and massacres, according to a report... - OK, they're not really "free," but still cheap by American standards...
- Israel issued thinly-veiled warnings yesterday that it was preparing to take direct action to stop Iran, its bitter enemy, acquiring nuclear weapons.
Pages for January, 2006
|