contributions

Channel Four, producers of the "investigative" programme, Dispatches, have been reported to the industry regulator, Ofcom, by the West Midlands police for undermining community cohesion by misreporting the words of a Muslim preacher at the Birmingham Green Lane mosque.
The preacher, an American Muslim, Abu Usamah, is reported by C4 as having made several racist and homophobic remarks. These, Abu Usamah says, were all taken out of context and, after examining over 50 hours of footage, the (…)

On Sunday August 5, 2007 the House of Representatives approved a report accompanying the FY 2008 Defense Appropriations bill that demands the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC) release to the public the names of all students and instructors who attended the school during the fiscal years of 2005 and 2006. The directive also requires that the same information be available to the public in all future fiscal years.
Written by SOA Watch Tuesday, 07 August 2007 (…)

Castillo, in his cool Asunción office, with the standard Paraguayan herbal tea, tereré in his hand, said these operations marked a shift in US military strategy. "The kind of training that used to just happen at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia is now decentralized," he explained. "The US military is now establishing new mechanisms of cooperation and training with armed forces." Combined efforts, such as MEDRETEs, are part of this agenda.
Written by Benjamin Dangl (…)

The failure of the I-35 Bridge in Minneapolis was an obvious failure of infrastructure, of deferred maintenance, of it’s not in the budget for this fiscal year. But over looked is the fact that this is our second warning not our first. The levees failing in New Orleans was an identical failure. The warnings were well known and just like the I-35 Bridge and hundreds of others they fell on deaf ears.
Our politicians like recalcitrant school children refuse to learn their lessons and spend (…)

5 Minutes to Midnight, Atomic Time: Half Past Sanity
Bee Z. Bendigedig Bombshelter.org August 7, 2007
As the world teeters on the brink of total Armageddon, thanks to a global network of war profiteers, multi-billionaire weapons manufacturers, corrupted politicians, apathetic and sociopathic mobs of industrial consumers, we once again cross the memorial marker of the first atomic bombing of civilian populations on our planet at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Every year, as an American (…)

By Roger Boyes in Berlin
Germans faced the prospect of summer holiday chaos yesterday as train drivers voted for an unlimited nationwide strike. It seems set to be the worst rail strike in 15 years and, along with a threat of industrial action by airline pilots, could bring the country to a standstill.
The timing is bad news for Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, who had hoped to crown Germany’s economic recovery with the successful privatisation of Deutsche Bahn, the German rail service. (…)

“One might expect [her] to consult [her] conscience...But, since it’s a matter of moral conclusions...there is, unfortunately, no cause for optimism.” — Carl G. Jung
Baltimore, MD - August 3, 2007, was the ninth consecutive Friday afternoon, when pro-Peace activists gathered in front of the luxurious Hi Rise residence of Maryland’s senior U.S. Senator—Barbara Mikulski. They insisted on bearing witness to her complicity with the violence-breeding War, Death & Mayhem Machine of the (…)

Record poppy crop to be harvested in Afghanistan By Matthew Lee Associated Press Saturday, August 4, 2007
WASHINGTON - Afghanistan will produce another record poppy harvest this year that cements its status as the world’s near-sole supplier of the heroin source, yet a furious debate over how to reverse the trend is stalling proposals to cut the crop, U.S. officials say.
As President Bush prepares for weekend talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, divisions within the U.S. (…)

03 August 2007 Indo-Israeli military ties enter next stage
A US$2.5 billion Indo-Israeli defense project marks a new phase in the two countries’ relations.
Commentary by P R Kumaraswamy for ISN Security Watch (03/08/07)
India’s recent decision to develop jointly a new generation of surface-to-air missile with Israel is a quantum leap in the two countries’ relations.
In early July, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the US$2.5 (…)

August 3, 2007 By HELENE COOPER and STEVEN ERLANGER RAMALLAH, West Bank, Aug. 2 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, embracing an appointed Palestinian prime minister here in the West Bank, said Thursday that the United States still supported democracy in the Middle East. But she defended the American refusal to recognize the earlier, elected, Hamas-led government.
Standing next to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, during a news conference here, Ms. Rice said, “We believe (…)