contributions

Published on Thursday, May 11, 2006 by the Independent / UK Emergency Aid May Be Too Little, Too Late for Palestinians Trying to Survive a Crisis by Donald Macintyre
Zarifa Abdel Khadr came in secret to Gaza City’s jewellery souk this week to sell the two gold rings she has owned for half a century.
She had no intention of telling her five sons and four daughters that she was parting with her possessions for about £150 to help feed them and her grandchildren.
"They wouldn’t allow me (…)

Published on Thursday, May 11, 2006 by USA Today NSA Has Massive Database of Americans’ Phone Calls by Leslie Cauley
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans - most (…)

May 11, 2006 Ringed by Nuclear States, Iran’s Atomic Program is Scarcely Unreasonable. So Why has Bush Manufactured a Crisis?
High-Octane Rocket-Rattling Against Tehran Won’t Work
By TARIQ ALI
Till now, what has prevented the crisis in Iraq from becoming a total debacle for the United States has been the open collaboration of the Iranian clerics. Iranian foreign policy - fragmentary and opportunist - has always been determined by the needs and interests of the clerical state rather (…)

www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1962
Venezuela’s Chávez on Private Visit to Britain
Thursday, May 11, 2006 By: Richard Beeston and Tom Baldwin - The Times
HUGO CHÁVEZ, the President of Venezuela and one of Tony Blair’s most vocal critics abroad, arrives in London this weekend on a whirlwind visit during which he will be fêted by Ken Livingstone, Labour MPs and the TUC but will avoid contact with the Prime Minister and his Government.
The diplomatic snub will be delivered (…)

Published on Friday, May 12, 2006 by Agence France Presse
Chomsky Says U.S. Pressuring Syria, Iran to ’Punish Disobedience’
Leading U.S. intellectual Noam Chomsky was loudly applauded Tuesday at a lecture in Beirut when he lashed out at U.S. pressure against countries, namely Iran and Syria, as a way to "punish disobedience."
(no AFP on BC thx !)

www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1626
Participatory Democracy In Venezuela
By: America Vera-Zavala - ZNet Commentary
The learning process is a basic argument for, and an important outcome of, participatory democracy. Parallel to the decision-making, a process of learning takes place where people learn how different things work and function and how they can influence them: a budget, a health station, a community kitchen. Knowledge is required to participate in building up (…)

Confrontations between islamist and pro-American militia made 80 died these last days with Mogadiscio.
The LULL will have lasted only a few hours hardly. Yesterday, as of the raised sun, the combat which make rage since four days in Mogadiscio between rival militia began again. The confrontations, worst than has known the Somali capital for ten years, would have already cost the life 80 people. According to the Red Cross, deaths are for the majority of civil, victims of the exchanges of (…)

Controversial Experimental Weather Modification Bill in US Congress
By Rosalind Peterson
May 11, 2006
EXPERIMENTAL WEATHER MODIFICATION BILL FAST TRACKING FOR PASSAGE IN U.S. SENATE & HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES U.S. Senate Bill 517 and U.S. House Bill 2995, a bill that would allow experimental weather modification by artificial methods and implement a national weather modification policy, does not include agriculture or public oversight, is on the “fast track” to be (…)

US War Doctrine And Iran Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that US should analyze all options against Iran, including nuclear weapons
By Pyotr Romanov
May 9, 2006 RIA Novosti and UPI
Washington (UPI) May 08, 2006
The Paris meeting on Iran, which the media dubbed "secret" because journalists were barred from it from start to finish, ended in failure as expected.
The positions of the sides remained the same. The United States wants the United Nations Security (…)

My good pal (name withheld by my request) has a pat explanation for everything Bush has and will do.
Regarding the 2000 and 2004 election claims of rigging: "This sort of talk is mad. Pure tinfoil hat stuff. No proof whatsoever"
Regarding Cheney’s secret energy meetings with Enron and others: "The VP has every right to secrecy. We don’t want the enemy to know who’s getting contracts, do we?"
Regarding Bush lying us into war:
"This is the old Liberal Left wing claim and is absolutely (…)