Hi. I've emailed enough about LA's January 27th Action Coalition Please Join us. For details: http://linuxbeach.net/jan27action/ Ed
=== http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?list=type&type=182 Join Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon in the Streets this Weekend! January 25, 2007 Dear james m, We are packing our bags, jumping onto buses and trains and planes, flinging our pink boas around our necks, ready and excited to bring our Women Say No to War campaign to the streets of Washington, DC! Women will be a powerful force at the massive Mandate for Peace mobilization this Saturday, January 27-before the march, too, when we join with Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Eve Ensler, Q'orianka Kilcher, Rhea Perlman, Mimi Kennedy, Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters and other amazing women for a colorful and rowdy Women Say Pull Out convergence. We hope you'll join us! "I have been walking the halls of Congress this week with Iraq veterans to help get them the health care and benefits they need and deserve. And I'll be back on Saturday to join the anti-war march and encourage all Americans to come out and engage. Let's show we really care about our troops by bringing them home now and taking care of them when they get here." - Susan Sarandon http://www.codepinkalert.org/index.php President Bush's State of the Union address only drives home why we need to take to the streets this Saturday. As much as he spoke of "hope and opportunity" for America's future Tuesday night, Bush is squandering our truest hopes and opportunities by funneling so much money into an unnecessary war. This recent graphic in the NY Times highlights how recklessly our tax dollars are being used. We are pouring $200 billion dollars into the war in Iraq, while universal health care for everyone in the country without insurance would cost just half that amount. Universal preschool would only cost our country $35 billion. Immunizing the entire world's children against diseases such as measles and diphtheria would cost $0.6 billion. We can't let this madness continue. Join us on January 27 to say No More Funding for War! Bring Our Troops Home Now! We will use our feet and our lungs and our signs and our outrage to let Bush and our new Congress know that we are serious about ending this war. If you can't make it to DC, see if there is a solidarity event being planned in your area. If not, create your own, even if that means standing alone on a street corner with a sign! In lieu of lobbying, you can call your Congressperson to demand they cut the funding for George Bush's War. Our voices are powerful, wherever we may be geographically. We know peace is the only real path to hope and opportunity for this country. Together we will make it happen. With peace and excitement, Dana, Farida, Gael, Gayle, Jodie, Liz, Medea, Nancy, Patricia, Rae, Samantha, and Sonia *** http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003538329 Published on Friday, January 26, 2007 by Editor & Publisher Molly Ivins Hospitalized in Ongoing Battle With Cancer by E & P Staff AUSTIN -- Almost three weeks ago, Molly Ivins wrote that she would dedicate every single one of her syndicated columns from now on to the issue of stopping the war in Iraq -- until it ended. But she has managed to finish only one more column since. The gravely ill Texas columnist has been hospitalized again this week in her ongoing battle with breast cancer. Her assistant Betsy Moon says she may be able to go home Monday. She adds that those close to Ivins are ``not sure what's going to happen, but she's very sick.'' The 62-year-old columnist had taken an earlier break from her syndicated column, but resumed writing earlier this month. Last October she had suggested this headline to an E&P interviewer: "Molly Ivins Still Not Dead." E&P wrote then, "The third recurrence of the breast cancer she has been battling since 1999 (and which recently claimed her good friend, former Texas Gov. Ann Richards) has left the 62-year-old Ivins with precarious balance, minimal hair, and no illusions about the redemptive quality of life-threatening illness. 'I'd hoped to become a better person from confronting my own mortality,' she laughs. 'But it hasn't happened.'" In the Jan. 11th column, which opposed the troop escalation, Ivins wrote "We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war....If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'" But this was the last newspaper column she has been able to write. The column she wrote before that, a few days earlier, opened, "The president of the United States doesn't have the sense God gave a duck. So it's up to us. You and me. "I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is we have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped now." She vowed, "This will be a regular feature of mine, like an old-fashioned newspaper campaign. Every column, I'll write about this war until we find some way to end it. "Every time, we'll review some factor we should have gotten right." Nearly 400 newspapers subscribe to her column. The longtime journalist and former New York Times reporter got her third cancer diagnosis more than a year ago and has undergone chemotherapy. ### Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:42:36 -0500 (EST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AP via CNN - Jan 26, 2007 http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/01/26/canada.apology.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories Canada compensates man U.S. rendered for torture to Syria OTTAWA, Canada (AP) -- Canada's prime minister apologized to Maher Arar on Friday and announced the government would compensate him C$10.5 million (US$8.9 million) for its role in his deportation from the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured while held in prison for nearly a year. Prime Minister Stephen Harper again called on the U.S. government to remove the Ottawa telecoms engineer from any of its no-fly or terrorist watchlists and reiterated that Ottawa would keep pressing Washington to clear Arar's name. "We think the evidence is absolutely clear and that the United States should in good faith remove Mr. Arar from the list," Harper told a news conference in Ottawa. "We don't intend to either change or drop our position." The U.S. government has repeatedly insisted it has reasons to leave the 37-year-old on its watchlists. The issue has grown into an unpleasant diplomatic row between the world's largest trading partners and closest allies. The Syrian-born Arar, who moved to Canada with his family when he was 17, is the best-known case of rendition, a practice in which the U.S. government sends foreign terror suspects to third countries for interrogation. Arar thanked the Canadian government at a news conference Friday. "The struggle to clear my name has been long and hard; my kids have suffered silently and I feel that I owe them a lot," said Arar, who also thanked Canadians for standing by him. (Watch Arar tell of family's heartache Video) "Without the support of the Canadian people, I may never have come home and I would not have been able to stay strong and push for the truth," he said. A 'terrible ordeal' Arar was detained at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport in 2002 during a stopover on his way home to Canada from a vacation with his family in Tunisia. He said he was chained and shackled by U.S. authorities for 11 days during interrogation and then flown to Syria, where he was tortured and forced to make false confessions. He was released 10 months later, with Syrian officials saying they had no reason to hold him further. "On behalf of the government of Canada, I want to extend a full apology to you and Monia as well as your family for the role played by Canadian officials in the terrible ordeal that you experienced in 2002 and 2003," Harper said. Arar and his wife, Monia Mazigh, and their young son and daughter now live in Kamloops, British Columbia. "I sincerely hope that these words and actions will assist you and your family in your efforts to begin a new and hopeful chapter in your lives," Harper said, adding the compensation package would also pay for his estimated $1 million in legal fees. Arar was exonerated last September after a two-year public inquiry led by Associate Chief Justice of Ontario Dennis O'Connor. It found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police wrongly labeled Arar as an Islamic fundamentalist and passed misleading and inaccurate information to U.S. authorities, which very likely led to Arar's arrest and deportation. The report pointed out that Arar's inability to find work since his return from Syria has had a devastating economic and psychological impact on him and his family. O'Connor urged the RCMP to usher in a raft of policy changes on information sharing, training and monitoring of security probes. In the aftermath, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli resigned over his handling of the file. Cross-border tensions The U.S. District Court of Appeals last February dismissed Arar's lawsuit against U.S. government officials, ruling the deportation of the dual Syrian-Canadian citizen was protected on national security grounds. His attorneys with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed an appeal in December. "We are grateful that the Canadian government has had the humanity to try to right the terrible wrong that was done to Maher," CCR Attorney Maria LaHood said in a statement Friday. "We still hope the U.S. government will follow Canada's lead." The new Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, earlier this month publicly scolded U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for refusing to explain why the United States had sent a Canadian citizen to Syria. "The Canadian government now has taken several steps to accept responsibility for its role in sending Mr. Arar to Syria, where he was tortured," Leahy said in a statement Friday. "The question remains why, even if there were reasons to consider him suspicious, the U.S. government shipped him to Syria where he was tortured, instead of to Canada for investigation or prosecution." He said the U.S. Justice Department intended to respond to his demands next week. U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, on Wednesday chastised Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day for continuing to press Washington on the Arar matter. "It's a little presumptuous of him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country," Wilkins said. In a recent letter to Day, U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and Gonzales said U.S. files on Arar indicate the decision to keep Arar on watchlists is "appropriate." "Our conclusion in this regard is supported by information developed by U.S. law enforcement agencies that is independent of that provided to us by Canada with regard to Mr. Arar," the letter said, adding that they wished to thank Canada for its cooperation in fighting terrorism. Arar said his case has forced some Canadians to question their relationship to the United States, noting U.S. authorities declined to participate in Canada's federal inquiry. "It's a question that touches all Canadians," Arar said. "Can we really trust the Americans to be our partners in the fight against terrorism?" Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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