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This morning on the NBC news show, "Meet the Press", two reporters who were in Iraq, NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski & New York Times’ Dexter Filkins both told moderator Tim Russert that it was difficult and dangerous for reporters to venture outside the fortified "Green Zone." Both reporters stated they they themselves rarely ventured outside the Green Zone. Naturally, they both made statements to the effect that "things are getting better" in Iraq.
Are Americans so blind and stupid that they (…)

Leading international figures among the Panel of Advocates
13 April 2005, Istanbul, Turkey - The organisers of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) held a press conference today at the Sabanci University Communication Center in Istanbul providing details of the final session of the Tribunal that will be held at the Topkapi Palace Grounds in Istanbul between the 23rd and the 27th of June. The panel of advocates will include leading international figures, such as Dennis Halliday, Prof. Richard (…)

Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez has lifted a state of emergency in the capital, Quito, less than 24 hours after he imposed it.
Thousands of people had taken to the streets of the city in defiance of the new emergency powers.
They were also protesting the president’s decision on Friday to dismiss the Supreme Court for the second time in four months.
The security forces took no action to stop the demonstration.
Speaking on national television, Mr Gutierrez said he was lifting the (…)

Thank you for joining us on Catalyst Radio.
Would you start by talking about some general issues surrounding globalization.
Dr. Vandana Shiva: Well those of use who are concerned about the globalization that has been contrived and yet made to look as if it is a natural evolutionary step, we are concerned about the injustice and undemocratic system on which it is based.
And everything we said, fifteen years ago, when these rules were being put in place, very artificially, under GAT (…)

Playing Politics at Kids’ Expense Bill would insulate pharmaceutical firms from liability by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has buried a provision in the "Protecting America in the War on Terror Act" to insulate the pharmaceutical industry from liability for venal actions that may have poisoned an entire generation of Americans.
Mounting evidence suggests that Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in children’s vaccines, may be responsible for the exponential (…)

by JIM MCGOVERN
"Trust me when I tell you things are so much better in Iraq," said one US military official to me on my recent visit to that war-ravaged country. I didn’t know whether to scream or pull the remaining two strands of hair out of my head. I was in Iraq as part of a delegation of eight members of Congress, led by House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Everything we have been told about Iraq by the Bush Administration has either been an outright lie or overwhelmingly false. There (…)

Few Americans know about the historic event that happened on January 6, 2005, the official date for counting electoral votes. For the first time since 1877, congressmembers challenged the electoral count. Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio, accompanied by the lone senator, Barbara Boxer of California, led the challenge of the Ohio vote count. Although massive fraud was reported around the country, only Ohio was officially cited.
It is curious that an issue so profound and (…)

The "bankruptcy reform" bill "passed the House on a 302-126 vote on Thursday, a month after the Senate voted 74-25." It is time for the American wing of the global justice movement, which has been struggling to force the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to drop the debt under which peasants and workers of the global South groan, to take on the finance and credit industry that oppresses US workers by usury.
Why not begin this weekend, when global justice activists gather in (…)

I find it mildly entertaining that so many people seem to be outraged that ’the Americans are so stupid for not knowing what their government is doing’ and that ’Bush is so evil... he’s the one to blame for everything occuring the way it is!’ To the people who identify with this mode of thinking, I’d like to explain to you some factors that your rage appears to be blinding you of. These factors will begin to help you finally understand the world for what it is.
Number 1... Bush isn’t the (…)

At least six people including four American troops were killed in several security incidents that took place on the Iraqi arena over the past hours.
In the latest report, the Multi-National Forces said in a statement that a US Marine was killed in a firefight with armed insurgents in Al-Anbar, in the western territory of Iraq. The Marine died with shrapnel of a mortar shell, it said.
Eearlier today, Iraqi police said three US soldiers where killed and two others were wounded in a car (…)