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Another masterpiece of Latin American cinema
The director André Wood signs one of the most beautiful Chilean film, I do not hesitate to say it, "Machuca" is one of the masterpiece of Latin American cinema, I just hesitate to say "of Latin American cinema"!
Striking actors, fabulous images, formidable music, deeply moving scenario, the words are missing and we get lost in cliché to qualify this film.
The coolness and the spontaneity of the first part of the film, contrast with the pain (…)

THE OTHER, MAN-MADE TSUNAMI
The west’s crusaders, the United States and Britain, are giving less to help the tsunami victims than the cost of a Stealth bomber or a week’s bloody occupation of Iraq. The bill for George Bush’s coming inauguration party would rebuild much of the coastline of Sri Lanka. Bush and Blair increased their first driblets of "aid" only when it became clear that people all over the world were spontaneously giving millions and a public relations problem beckoned. The (…)

No Evidence WMDs Were Moved From Iraq: Officials January 17, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - As the hunt for weapons of mass destruction dragged on unsuccessfully in Iraq, top U.S. administration officials speculated publicly that the banned armaments may have been smuggled out of the country before the war started.
Whether Saddam Hussein moved deadly chemical, biological or radiological arms is one of the unresolved issues that the final U.S. intelligence report on Iraq’s programs is expected to (…)

Dutch Occupation Forces To Leave Iraq Mid-March Arjan El Fassed, Electronic Iraq 17 January 2005 Dutch ministers have decided against a gradual withdrawal of the nation’s peacekeeping troops from Iraq and the mission will end as planned mid-March, it was reported on Monday.
The Netherlands will pull its soldiers out of Iraq on March 15, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende confirmed after meeting today with his foreign and defense ministers Ben Bot and Henk Kamp.
Prime Minister (…)

Firings At CBS Don’t Vindicate Bush Dave Zweifel January 17, 2005 The headlines in the newspapers and the 10-second snippets on radio and TV were similar to the one that appeared in the Chicago Tribune last week: "CBS News fires 4 in erroneous Bush story."
Unfortunately, the headlines and summaries were wrong.
Yes, CBS did fire four of its top news people after a two-person independent investigation concluded that the news network failed basic journalistic standards in putting (…)

Ohio Pulls Plug On Electronic Voting Blackwell Opts For People Filling Out Ballots By Hand Julie Carr Smyth January 13, 2005
Columbus - The battle is over and electronic voting machines, at least in Ohio, are dead.
After years of wrangling and protests, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell announced Wednesday that he will limit Ohio’s uncompleted voting-machine conversion to a single device: the precinct-count optical-scan machine.
The decision effectively sidelines the embattled (…)

Mexican-American marine who did not want to return to Iraq, kills cop and is killed in shootout
AVI video clip of first part of the shootout
by Ernesto Cienfuegos
Los Angeles, Alta California, January 11, 2005 - (ACN) A US Marine of Mexican descent home for the holidays from Fallujah, Iraq decided to wage battle yesterday against his own hometown police department of Ceres, California rather than return to Iraq to kill innocent Iraqi civilians. Nineteen year old Andres Raya, a (…)

By E&P Staff
NEW YORK The Pentagon ban on newspaper and TV images of coffins returning from Iraq suffered an unexpected jolt in Louisiana yesterday.
A Louisiana National Guard unit defied a Pentagon request to prevent television news crews from filming six flag-draped soldiers’ coffins arriving in the state following the men’s deaths in Iraq last week, according to a report by CBS News.
The Louisiana National Guard allowed a CBS crew to film the arrival of six soldiers’ coffins at (…)

by Andrew Osborn
Moscow. Thousands of Russian pensioners staged protests across the country yesterday against the abolition of generous Soviet-era social benefits.
Though the demonstrations were peaceful, analysts said the protests were the most serious in Russia since 1998, when disgruntled coal miners blocked railway tracks in protest at unpaid wages.
Yesterday was the third consecutive day of demonstrations, which have stretched from Russia’s Far East to Moscow itself and at times (…)

January 20 Update:
Media coverage from NYTimes, NPR, AP & Reuters (see below)
Funds needed for bleachers, sound, stage & more
Spread the word about antiwar bleachers at 4th St. & Pennsylvania Ave. NW!
Please share the following articles from the mass media with your friends.
"On inauguration day Pennsylvania Avenue is where the action is" was the lead of the January 13 Morning Edition on National Public Radio. The NPR news story is among hundreds covering plans for the (…)