[news] Animal House
Global Eye Animal House By Chris Floyd Every now and then the mask slips, and we see the true face of the system that marshals the world. For an instant, the heavy paint of sober wisdom and moral purpose falls away, and there, suddenly, with jolting clarity, is the snarling rictus of an ape.Last week gave us two such moments: a quantum collision, where past and present co-exist temporarily, their overlapping images phasing in and out of synch, now Nixon now Bush now Kissinger now Rumsfeld, mouths, eyes, snarls morphing and shifting, with only one image holding constant between the eras -- the twisted, shivered bodies of dead innocents.First was the release of long-secret phone transcripts from Henry Kissinger's heyday as Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor. Most stories about the release centered on the Nixon Gang's panicky efforts to deal with bad publicity from the rape-and-slaughter rampage by U.S. troops in My Lai, Vietnam. As in the current Iraqi prison scandal, the great statesmen were concerned wholly with "containing" the PR damage, not stopping the systematic atrocities -- which were, after all, being carried out at their command. Then as now, rump-covering was the order of the day.But virtually ignored in the pile of power-talk was an extraordinary historical snapshot of a war crime in the moment of conception. It's 1970. Nixon is angry: The Air Force is not killing enough people in Cambodia, the country he has just illegally invaded without the slightest pretence of Congressional approval. The flyboys are doing "milk runs," their intelligence-gathering is too by-the-book: There are "other methods" of getting intelligence, he tells Kissinger. "You understand what I mean?" "Yes, I do," pipes the loyal retainer.Nixon then orders Kissinger to send every available plane into Cambodia -- bombers, fighters, helicopters, prop planes -- to "crack the hell out of them," smother the entire country with deadly fire: "I want them to hit everything." Kissinger tells his own top aide, General Alexander Haig, to try to implement the plan: "He wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia," Kissinger says. "It's an order, it's to be done. Anything that flies on anything that moves."That's how the system works, beneath the mask. A blustering fool issues an order, and thousands upon thousands of innocent people die. An entire country is ripped to shreds, and into the smoking ruins steps a fanatical band of crazed extremists -- the Khmer Rouge -- who murder two million more. Just hours after the transcripts' release, the image of Kissinger in 1970, calmly ordering mass death, morphed into the picture of Pentagon chief Don Rumsfeld addressing West Point graduates in 2004, exhorting the Army cadets to a life of moral purpose -- without a single mention of the rape-and-torture gulag he's strung across the world at the order of his own hell-cracking master, George W. Bush. Rumsfeld also issued this warning: The illegal invasion of Iraq is just "the beginning" of what is no longer merely a "war on terror" but is now an all-out death-struggle with what Rumsfeld called "global insurgency," Reuters reports.Note carefully the change in rhetoric -- the change in target -- from "terrorism" to "insurgency." An "insurgent" is someone who rises up to resist or overthrow a ruling power. George Washington was an insurgent; so was Pol Pot. But a perceived "global insurgency" can only be aimed at a global power. What Rumsfeld is clearly saying is that anyone anywhere who resists the world-spanning will of the American Empire will be subject to "the path of action." That's the blood-and-iron terminology that Bush himself used to describe his policies in the official "National Security Strategy" he issued -- just months before killing more than 10,000 civilians in Iraq.No doubt the definition of "global insurgent" will prove to be every bit as elastic as "terrorist," in a world where Iraqi prisoners -- 70 percent to 90 percent of them completely innocent, according to the Red Cross -- were "Gitmo-ized," treated just like the alleged terrorists in America's lawless Guantnamo concentration camp; a world where even U.S. citizens simply disappear into the maw of military custody, held without charges, indefinitely, on the president's express order. If America controls your country and you don't like it, you're an insurgent. If you're an American who doesn't like to control other countries, you too are an insurgent. And the war against you is "just beginning.""Global insurgency. Crack the hell out of them. The path of action. Anything that flies on anything that moves." They should chisel these words on the White House walls, teach them in every classroom -- for this is the system, the true constitution of the American Establishment, the great and the good, the best and brightest. This is what they do, what they've always done. >From the Indians to the Iraqis,
[news] Russia aims to crack down on Serb attacks
Russia aims to crack down on Serb attacksCopyright 2004 Nando MediaCopyright 2004 AP Online The Associated PressMOSCOW (June 6, 3:41 am ADT) - Russia's Foreign Ministry condemned the killing of a Serb teenager in Kosovo and said Sunday the U.N.-run province should take tougher measures against the organizers of attacks against ethnic Serbs. The 16-year-old Serb was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting Saturday in a Serb enclave about eight miles east of Kosovo's capital, Pristina. U.N. police identified the suspects in the shooting as ethnic Albanians. The attack was likely to further inflame already high tensions between the ethnic Albanian majority and the Serb minority. "The incident is just another link in a chain of crimes aimed against the Serbian community in Kosovo," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko. He called on the U.N. mission and KFOR, NATO's peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, to "take urgent and effective measures to establish order." "It is very important now to prevent this case from turning into a new spiral of interethnic tension in the region," he said. Russia is sympathetic to the Serbs, sharing their Orthodox religion and Slavic roots. Kosovo's Serbs have been targeted by ethnic Albanian extremists in revenge attacks since mid-1999, when the United Nations and NATO took control of the province after an alliance air war that ended a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. In early March, Serbs took to the streets to protest a similar shooting of a teenager blamed on ethnic Albanians. That incident led to two days of deadly ethnic clashes that spread throughout the province - Kosovo's worst violence since the war ended. http://www.adn.com/24hour/world/story/1417229p-8729525c.html
[news] Russia urges KFOR to ensure order in Kosovo
Russia urges KFOR to ensure order in Kosovo 06.06.2004,17.40 MOSCOW, June 6 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia calls on KFOR to take urgent measures for ensuring order in Kosovo, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said on Sunday in connection with the Saturday murder of a 17-year-old Serb boy in Gracanica. It is very important to prevent the incident from triggering another outbreak of inter-ethnic tension on the territory, Yakovenko said. Leaders of the Kosovo Albanian community share this responsibility. We strongly denounce acts of violence against Serbs and demand urgent and efficient measures of the UN Mission and KFOR to provide for order. The necessary measures are well known. These are disarmament of local residents, disbandment of organizations of militants, and strict punishment of organizers and participants in attacks on Serbs, he said. ITAR-TASS. All right reserved. You undertake not to copy, store in any medium (including in any other website), distribute, transmit, re-transmit, broadcast, modify or show in public any part of the ITAR-TASS website without the prior written permission of ITAR-TASS.contact phone.:(095)2021127, 2021295, 2904468, 2292864, 2294171; :(095)2025474 e-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[news] IFJ criticizes report on media's role in Kosovo violence
Ah, Kathy Morton, the wife of Tricky Dick (the Balkan Bulldozer) comes to mind, when IFJ is in question And of course, those bloody 'propagandists of Milosevic war machine' had to day on April 23, 1999,. Theydeserved it. They did not change the tune. --- Page: http://news.serbianunity.net/bydate/2004/June_04/15.html Serbian Unity Congress News Time: Friday, 06/04/04, 23:54:06 IFJ criticizes report on medias role in Kosovo violence, International Journalists' Network June 04, 2004 The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has criticized a report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that blames the media in Kosovo for stirring up ethnic tensions there between Serbs and Albanians in March 2004. The OSCE report said that calm, accurate and responsible reporting might have prevented or lessened the outbreak of the violence, which resulted in 19 deaths, more than 900 injuries, and damage to homes, churches and monasteries. The March 17 clashes were allegedly prompted by reports - later proved false - that two Albanian children drowned in a river after being chased by a group of Serbs. On May 29, IFJ backed a protest from its affiliate, the Professional Journalists Association of Kosovo, against the OSCE and the Temporary Media Commissioner in Kosovo. Speaking in Athens at IFJ's annual congress, General Secretary Aidan White said that the report failed to prove any systematic attempts to distort news coverage to incite violence in Kosovo. The report, he said, was an attempt to divert attention from the failure of OSCE and United Nations policies in Kosovo. It looks like politicians are letting themselves off the hook over policies and actions that are the root causes of violence," he said. He added that regimes in countries like Belarus, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan - where journalists are often held responsible for failed policy - may be comforted to see that the OSCE shares their concerns about irresponsible media.
[news] News, 05.06.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News June 5th 2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Berlusconi Assures Bush of Italian Support in Iraq Just before visiting one of his sharpest critics, the French president, U.S. President Bush received assurances from Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi that his country was prepared to stick by the United States in Iraq. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_1227234_1_A,00.html -- Enjoy our World News newsletter? Why not also subscribe to Daily Bulletin, DW-WORLD's latest daily digest of the day's top German and European stories, delivered to you around 18:30 UTC. To find out more and sign up, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english/newsletter -- US expects UN to approve Iraq resolution US President George W Bush has said he expects the United Nations Security Council to approve a new resolution on Iraq. After meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Rome, Bush said the resolution guarantees Iraq full sovereignty as of June 30. He said this will help win support in restoring democracy to Iraq. The new draft by the US and Britain also grants the Iraqi interim government the right to order the US-led troops out of the country. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi said he hoped that the new resolution would be approved as early as next week. Bush has now arrived in France to take part in D-Day commemorations and meet with French President Jacques Chirac. Germany joins D-Day rememberance German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has called his participation in the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings an honour for Germany. Schroeder is the first German chancellor to stand alongside other world leaders in D-Day commemorations. On June 6, 1944, over 135,000 Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to invade Nazi-occupied France. Operation Overlord was the first step towards the defeat of Nazi Germany. In a letter to a German newspaper, Schroeder said no one expected Germans to feel guilty for the crimes committed in the past by an unjust regime. But he added that Germans must take responsibility for their history. Speaking in France, the German Chancellor expressed deep shame over atrocities committed there by German occupiers during World War II. Pope arrives in Switzerland Pope John Paul II has arrived in Switzerland for a two-day visit including talks with Swiss President Joseph Deiss and a Catholic youth rally. The 84-year-old pope, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, will preside at a jamboree of tens of thousands of Catholic youths at the capital, Bern. Security in the city is tight, as police prepare for expected protests against the visit, despite an official ban on demonstrations in the capital. Many Swiss Catholics oppose the Vatican's uncompromising stance on issues such as contraception, homosexuality and female priesthood. Three out of four Swiss also believe the Pope is too old for his job. The Pontiff has only visited Switzerland once before, 20 years ago. US Defense Secretary in Bangladesh A visit to Bangladesh by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been greeted by massive anti-US protests, watched over by more than 6,000 police and troops. Rumsfeld is in the capital, Dhaka, to meet with with Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan. Talks are expected to focus on troop deployment to Iraq. The visit follows Rumsfeld's address to Asian defence ministers meeting in Singapore, in which he warned of the continuing threat of global terrorism. Rumsfeld called on Asian countries to fight terrorism, but did not ask for troops for Iraq. On Friday, thousands of demonstrators marched through Dhaka to protest the visit, and an overnight arson attack on a bus killed nine people and injured at least 20. 16 UN aid workers taken hostage in Sudan Sudan's foreign ministry says rebels in the country's western Darfur region have seized 16 United Nations aid workers. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Nejib al-Khari Abdel Wahab said all staff of the UN Development Programme were abducted by Sudan Liberation Movement in the Darfur region. He said the rebels had promised UN officials that the hostages would be released. The UN has confirmed the abduction, but has not commented on contact with the rebels. The Khartoum government and rebels have signed an agreement that foresees final peace talks starting on June 2. Khartoum has been
[news] 6 juin 44 : ce qu'on ne vous dira pas demain
Title: 6 juin 44 : ce qu'on ne vous dira pas demain 6 juin 44 : ce qu'on ne vous dira pas demainPourquoi Ford, GM et Esso ont-elles armé Hitler ?MICHEL COLLON"Oui, mais quand même les Américains nous ont ont libérés en 45!" Combien de fois, l'ai-je entendue celle-là! Sur les bancs de l'école. Mais aussi lors de débats sur les guerres actuelles des USA.40-45, la seule 'bonne' guerre US ? Peut-être à nuancer. Quelques faits troublants sont documentés dans un excellent livre de l'historien Jacques Pauwels (1).Ses documents irréfutables prouvent qu'une grande artie des sociétés US ont carrément collaboré avec Hitler, et pas seulement au début de la guerre : Du Pont, Union Carbide, Westinghouse, General Electric, Goodrich, Singer, Kodak, ITT, JP Morgan...Pire. La grande nouveauté stratégique d'Hitler, ce fut la "Blitzkrieg", la guerre-éclair : porter très vite ses troupes au coeur de l'adversaire. Pour cela, deux conditions indispensables : des camions et de l'essence. L'Allemagne n'ayant aucun des deux, c'est Esso qui a fourni l'essence, tandis que les camions provenaient des usines allemandes de Ford et General Motors."Que cette guerre dure le plus longtemps possible!"Pauwels montre que : 1. Une grande partie du patronat US était pro-Hitler dans les années 30 et 40. 2. Cela n'a changé qu'au moment où les ventes des firmes US furent mises en danger par l'agressivité commerciale allemande en Amérique latine et ailleurs. Et par les occupations japonaises qui confiquaient tout le commerce en Asie.En fait, les Etats-Unis jouaient double jeu. Ils souhaitaient que la guerre dure longtemps. Pourquoi ?D'un côté, les énormes profits que leurs sociétés réalisaient en Allemagne étaient en croissance. De l'autre côté, ils s'enrichissaient en prêtant à la Grande-Bretagne qui supportait tout le poids financier de la guerre. Washington posait d'ailleurs comme condition que Londres abandonne ses colonies après la guerre. Ce qui fut fait. Les Etats-Unis ont réussi à profiter de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale pour affaiblir leurs rivaux et devenir la seule superpuissance capitaliste.Henry Ford : "Ni les Alliés, ni l'Axe ne devraient gagner la guerre. Les USA devraient fournir aux deux camps les moyens de continuer à se battre jusqu'à ce que tous deux s'effondrent."Le futur président Harry Truman, 1941 : "Si l'Allemagne gagne, nous devons aider la Russie et si la Russie gagne, nous devons aider l'Allemagne, afin qu'il en meure le maximum de chaque côté."Ce jeu cynique ne cessa que lorsque l'URSS vainquit Hitler. Alors seulement, les Etats-Unis se précipitèrent pour sauver leurs intérêts en Europe. Demain 6 juin, on fera comme si la guerre avait été gagnée en Normandie et non à Stalingrad. On ne dira pas qu'Hitler perdit 90% de ses soldats à l'Est. Que pour un soldat US tué, il y en eut 53 soviétiques. Les manuels scolaires sont parfois bizarres, non ?Voilà, désolé de vous avoir ôté une de vos dernières illusions. Demain, 6 juin, vous pourrez penser à tout ça lorsque sur une plage normande, on fêtera George Bush alors que son grand-père a financé Hitler. Dans quel monde vivons-nous ?MICHEL COLLONPS. Si vous êtes historien, si vous traquez les mythes, les tabous, les secrets de l'Histoire officielle, ou si vous connaissez de tels historiens, écrivez-nous. Notre site en construction fera bientôt connaître "l'Autre Histoire"...(1). Paru en néerlandais sous le titre Le mythe de la bonne guerre (l'Amérique et la Deuxième Guerre mondiale), EPO 2000. La version française sort bientôt. A recommander, c'est aussi plein de révélations sur Roosevelt, Truman, la menace d'envahir l'URSS, la récupération des espions et criminels nazis, Churchill, De Gaulle, Yalta... Commandes UNIQUEMENT à : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[news] The Bilderberg group
http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,1231830,00.html The Bilderberg group The Bilderberg group of the world's elite, currently meeting in northern Italy and celebrating its 50th anniversary, casts an extensive shadow on the net. Mark Oliver Friday June 4, 2004 1. At the annual meetings of the Bilderberg group, a clique of some of the world's most powerful people scheme and plot, carving up the globe for themselves, while occasionally cackling like Dr Evil in Mike Myers' Austin Powers films. 2. That, at least, is the view of the conspiracy theorists, whose opinions are widely expressed on the internet. Indeed, the web positively crackles with Bilderberg-related websites, (although of course there is no official site by the organisers). 3. Those who run Bilderberg's annual four-day meetings, and some of the people who have been to them, insist that there is nothing sinister going on. The official line is that the meetings are no more than useful forums, talking shops for prominent people from various influential spheres (politics, business, royalty ... ) to chew the fat about big issues. And the only reason they are so secretive about what exactly goes on is to facilitate vibrant, uninhibited informal discussion. So no evil cackling. 4. The more even-handed assessments usually outline qualms about how the meetings facilitate capitalism and support the current world order and all its sins. Former Observer editor Will Hutton, who has been invited in the past, called the group the high priests of globalisation. 5. The Bilderberg group got its name from a hotel in Holland where the first meeting was held in 1954. The idea was to foster greater accord between the movers and shakers of North America and western Europe in the wake of the second world war. Every year the set-up is similar. Around 100 prominent figures are invited by a steering committee. 6. This year's Bilderberg meeting began yesterday in a luxury hotel in northern Italy and will run until Sunday. Present will be the odd press baron and media bigwig (sworn to secrecy like everyone else) but no reporters. 7. This year, apparently, BP boss John Browne, US senator John Edwards and Mrs Bill Gates are among the invitees. People who have been in the past include the likes of Henry Kissinger (a regular), Prince Charles, Bill Clinton, Donald Rumsfeld, Peter Mandelson, Kenneth Clarke, King Juan Carlos and Lord Black (although reportedly he's now off the guest list after his Telegraph travails). 8. Aconspiracy theorist might imagine Rumsfeld and Mandelson talking while supping champagne: So Donald, when are you going to invade North Korea? Soon, Peter, very soon. Right after we reveal that we've already got Osama bin Laden and are keeping him frozen in the Oval Office, like Han Solo in Jabba the Hut's palace in the Star Wars films. Or, who knows, maybe it's people lobbying for good works, saying things like we really need to get on top of climate change. 9. The journalist and documentary maker Jon Ronson tried to get close to a Bilderberg meeting in 2001, joining forces with an oddball Washington journalist he referred to as Big Jim. They exist, Ronson quotes Big Jim as saying, and they're not playing pinochle in there. 10. For what it's worth, my view is that the conspiracy theorists are on the wrong track. The Bilderberg don't run the word - it's actually a group called the Pentaveret that are calling the shots. The existence of the Pentaveret is revealed in the Mike Myers film, So I Married an Axe Murderer. The father of Myers' character says: It is a well-known fact ... that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as the Pentaveret , who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows. Members of the Pentaveret, he reveals, include the Queen, representatives of the Vatican, the Gettys and the Rothschilds, and, most chillingly, Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, before he died. The colonel had sinister beady little eyes, he says. Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
[news] Serb boy killed as tensions rise in Kosovo
Serb boy killed as tensions rise in Kosovo By Shaban Buza Click to enlarge photo GRACANICA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A Serb teenager has been shot dead in Kosovo and police have quickly arrested two Albanians suspected of trying to ignite another round of ethnic violence in the United Nations-run province. U.N. police spokesman Malcolm Ashby said 16-year-old Dimitrije Popovic died when gunmen fired from a car into a group of young Serbs at a hamburger kiosk at 2 a.m. on Saturday. Police in Pristina later stopped a suspect car and seized two Albanians with guns. The killing, in the Serb enclave of Gracanica, was the first since mid-March when 19 people died and villages were torched in what NATO said was an "orchestrated" bid to provoke the worst violence in Kosovo's five years under United Nations rule. "The criminals must be brought to justice and as soon as possible the motives for this criminal act must be found," Kosovo Albanian Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi said. "I call on all citizens of Kosovo to remain calm." Kosovo Albanian President Ibrahim Rugova said "such acts are directed against civil peace in Kosovo, against our country's future and independence." Albanian leaders were faulted in March for failing to quickly condemn the violence. Hampered by an Albanian code of silence or outright intimidation, U.N. police have also been criticised in the past for failing to make quick arrests. UNSAFE ENCLAVES It was not clear how the suspected gunmen managed to drive in and out of Gracanica. The NATO-led peacekeeping mission KFOR re-established checkpoints on the outskirts of the town after the March riots, saying their removal was a mistake. KFOR spokesman Colonel Jim Moran said some checkpoints "may have been relaxed". By afternoon, Gracanica was calm and under control but the roads in and out were sealed off until Monday. Oliver Ivanovic, a Serb member of Kosovo's parliament, blamed the U.N. and NATO for not stopping militants. "There is no living together here... We must seal off all roads through Serb districts," he said. The head of Serbia's Kosovo Coordination Centre, Nebojsa Covic, said the murder was "a message to the EU foreign policy chief (Javier) Solana who is arriving in Pristina on Monday, (and) a farewell message to...Harri Holkeri". Holkeri, Kosovo's fourth U.N. governor since 1999, quit two weeks ago under pressure. He returned to Kosovo on Saturday ahead of a final meeting with Solana, as international efforts to resolve Kosovo's demand for independence by 2005 intensify. Speaking on arrival Pristina airport, Holkeri said he did not want to see a repeat of the March violence and believed most decent Kosovo people did not want that either. It was a similar shooting in another Serb enclave, quickly followed by the drowning of three Albanian boys in a river, that ignited mob violence in March. Albanian media were condemned for blaming Serbs for the drowning and fomenting 'revenge' attacks. Serbs were targeted for revenge after Kosovo came under U.N. control in 1999 following NATO's 11-week bombing war to halt Serb repression of the independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. Belgrade has complained bitterly that those Serbs who chose to stay as 200,000 fled north are not adequately protected but its plan to create autonomous Serb enclaves is rejected by the Western powers that ordered intervention as a form of partition.
[news] MICHEL COLLON Aigle ou perroquet ?
Title: Aigle ou perroquet ? Aigle ou perroquet ?Le Soir contre les Russo : la presse est-elle libre ?MICHEL COLLON« Presse institutionnelle », « perroquets du pouvoir ». Deux grands quotidiens belges ont été vertement critiqués ce dimanche par Carine et Gino Russo, parents de Julie et Mélissa. Indignés de voir ces médias justifier avec mauvaise foi la non-enquête sur l'affaire Dutroux.« Accusation insultante, injuste et dénuée de tout fondement », réplique Le Soir (1 juin). Reprochant même aux Russo leur manque de « sérénité » (sic). Très fort ! Après tout ce qu'ils ont souffert, après qu'un juge d'instruction ait saboté l'enquête sur les réseaux pédophiles en Belgique, et de possibles implications de membres de l'establishment, les parents devraient être plus calmes et « sereins » ? Odieux.La presse est-elle libre ou institutionnelle ? Le Soir est-il un aigle ou un perroquet ? Voici un élément de réponse, basé sur mon expérience personnelle.En 1991, avec une dizaine de chercheurs, j'ai testé ce quotidien sur la première guerre du Golfe. Bilan catastrophique. Un festival de médiamensonges à la Timisoara. Présenter des « atrocités » sans vérifier. Camoufler sous des prétextes « humanitaires » les intérêts de nos multinationales dans ces guerres. Diaboliser qui nous résiste. Occulter l'histoire et la géographie indispensables pour comprendre. Taire les mises en question et les enquêtes indépendantes.Invité à en débattre à la sortie de ce livre Attention, médias !, le rédac-chef du Soir répondit qu'aucun de ses journalistes ne viendrait débattre d'un livre « qui nuit fortement à notre journal ».Même censure lorsque mes deux livres suivants ont testé l'info sur la Bosnie et le Kosovo. Le Soir reprenait en perroquet les mensonges de l'Otan, de son porte-parole Jamie Shea et d'Alastair Campbell, conseiller en propagande de guerre de Tony Blair. Aujourd'hui encore, lorsque d'ex-généraux de l'Otan ou l'ancien dirigeant PS Guy Spitaels disent tous qu'on nous a raconté des médiamensonges du début à la fin sur le Kosovo, lorsqu'un débat se tient là-dessus dans un cinéma de Bruxelles, Le Soir continue à se taire.Oui, dans toutes ces guerres, Le Soir a été un perroquet, la « voix de son maître », le défenseur des intérêts institutionnels. Et il a chaque fois refusé d'en débattre. Les lecteurs n'ont pas le droit de savoir (1).Et il ne s'agit pas une « vieille » histoire. Actuellement, des gens meurent chaque jour au Kosovo parce que les USA et l'Otan protègent des terroristes et des maffieux dans le silence des médias. Actuellement, des gens meurent chaque jour en Serbie parce que les bombardements de l'Otan ont imposé un gouvernement du FMI, et que le prix du pain a quadruplé, les médicaments sont hors de prix, les licenciements ont explosé. Sur cette misère, les multinationales font de « bonnes affaires », mais Le Soir se tait. Le silence des médias, c'est le service après-vente des bombardements.Il n'y a pas que les guerres. Sur le social, c'est pareil. Interrogez tous ceux qui ont mené une lutte des « petits » contre les « gros », demandez s'ils sont contents de la couverture des médias.Et sur la misère du tiers monde ? Le Soir vous montre-t-il comment nos multinationales étranglent les économies locales, ruinent les paysans, exploitent la main d'oeuvre, imposent des dictateurs et fomentent même des guerres pour contrôler des matières premières stratégiques ? Non. Des multinationales, Le Soir vous présente seulement les publicités car il en vit. Le coût de production d'un quotidien, c'est deux ou trois fois son prix de vente au lecteur. Oui, d'accord, c'est une règle économique de ce système. Mais alors a-t-on le droit de se faire passer pour un aigle au-dessus des intérêts dominants ?Ainsi, Le Soir confirme ce que disait Brecht : on peut montrer qu'il y a des riches, on peut montrer qu'il y a des pauvres, on ne peut montrer le lien entre les deux. Les gens ne peuvent savoir que s'il y a des riches, c'est parce qu'ils exploitent les pauvres.Oui, celui qui cache d'où vient la misère du monde, celui qui cache les crimes de l'establishment, oui, c'est un perroquet.L'affaire Dutroux, je n'ai pu l'étudier. Simplement, comme tout le monde, je m'indigne qu'on ne réponde à aucune des grandes questions de l'enquête. Face à cette Opération Oubliettes, les parents Russo ont eu le courage d'apporter une réponse digne et constructive. L'extrême droite a d'autres réponses et se presse pour profiter du ras-le-bol. Le silence
[news] Soros: U.S. Is Perpetrator in Terror War
AP Soros: U.S. Is Perpetrator in Terror War By EMILY FREDRIX Associated Press Writer June 3, 2004, 3:41 PM EDT WASHINGTON -- America has gone from being the victim to the perpetrator in the war on terror and the pictures of prison abuse prove it, billionaire political activist George Soros said Thursday. Seeing pictures of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners was a "moment of truth" for America, Soros said during a conference sponsored by the liberal-leaning Campaign for America's Future. "I think those pictures hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself," Soros said, adding that it's a "very tough thing to say." "There is, I'm afraid, that connection with those two events because the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators," Soros said. The war on terror has taken more innocent victims than the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Soros said. "I think the American public now sees they have been misled," he said. Soros joined other political notables at the three-day "Take Back America Conference," including former presidential candidate Howard Dean, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and former California gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington. He was introduced by New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said Soros is just one of many Americans becoming involved in politics in the hopes of ousting Bush. The Republican National Committee was quick to dismiss Soros' statements, responding that the soldiers involved in the abuse are being punished. "For Democrats to say that the abuse of Iraqi fighters is the moral equivalent of the slaughter of 3,000 innocent Americans is outrageous. Their hatred of the president is fueling a blame-America-first mentality that is troubling," RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said in a statement. Soros, who is plugging millions of his own dollars into anti-Bush groups like Moveon.org and The Media Fund, linked Bush's policies of pre-emption and U.S. supremacy to another George -- George Orwell, author of the political satire "Animal Farm." "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," Soros said. Although Soros has set up foundations around the world to help newly formed democracies and create open societies, his new focus, he said, is voting Bush out of office in what he sees as a referendum on the president's policies. Bush may have been elected with a humble foreign policy in mind, but that changed with the invasion of Iraq, Soros said, calling the Bush doctrine a "crude form of social Darwinism." "It is, in fact, the moment of truth when we realize we have been deceived. We embarked on a policy that cannot possibly succeed," Soros said
[news] Bilderberg: The ultimate conspiracy theory
[In Yugoslavia, leading Serbs have blamed Bilderberg for triggering the war which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic.] Bilderberg: The ultimate conspiracy theory By Jonathan Duffy BBC News Online The Bilderberg group, an elite coterie of Western thinkers and power-brokers, has been accused of fixing the fate of the world behind closed doors. As the organisation marks its 50th anniversary, rumours are more rife than ever. Given its reputation as perhaps the most powerful organisation in the world, the Bilderberg group doesn't go a bundle on its switchboard operations. Telephone inquiries are met with an impersonal female voice - the Dutch equivalent of the BT Callminder woman - reciting back the number and inviting callers to "leave a message after the tone". Anyone who accidentally dialled the number would probably think they had stumbled on just another residential answer machine. But behind this ultra-modest façade lies one of the most controversial and hotly-debated alliances of our times. On Thursday the Bilderberg group marks its 50th anniversary with the start of its yearly meeting. For four days some of the West's chief political movers, business leaders, bankers, industrialists and strategic thinkers will hunker down in a five-star hotel in northern Italy to talk about global issues. What sets Bilderberg apart from other high-powered get-togethers, such as the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), is its mystique. Not a word of what is said at Bilderberg meetings can be breathed outside. No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted. The shadowy aura extends further - the anonymous answerphone message, for example; the fact that conference venues are kept secret. The group, which includes luminaries such as Henry Kissinger and former UK chancellor Kenneth Clarke, does not even have a website. In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world is largely decided by Bilderberg. In Yugoslavia, leading Serbs have blamed Bilderberg for triggering the war which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic. The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the London nail-bomber David Copeland and Osama Bin Laden are all said to have bought into the theory that Bilderberg pulls the strings with which national governments dance. And while hardline right-wingers and libertarians accuse Bilderberg of being a liberal Zionist plot, leftists such as activist Tony Gosling are equally critical. A former journalist, Mr Gosling runs a campaign against the group from his home in Bristol, UK. "My main problem is the secrecy. When so many people with so much power get together in one place I think we are owed an explanation of what is going on. Mr Gosling seizes on a quote from Will Hutton, the British economist and a former Bilderberg delegate, who likened it to the annual WEF gathering where "the consensus established is the backdrop against which policy is made worldwide". "One of the first places I heard about the determination of US forces to attack Iraq was from leaks that came out of the 2002 Bilderberg meeting," says Mr Gosling. But "privacy, rather than secrecy", is key to such a meeting says Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf, who has been invited several times in a non-reporting role. "The idea that such meetings cannot be held in private is fundamentally totalitarian," he says. "It's not an executive body; no decisions are taken there." As an up-and-coming statesmen in the 1950s, Denis Healey, who went on to become a Labour chancellor, was one of the four founding members of Bilderberg (which was named after the hotel in Holland where the first meeting was held in 1954). His response to claims that Bilderberg exerts a shadowy hand on the global tiller is met with characteristic bluntness. "Crap!" "There's absolutely nothing in it. We never sought to reach a consensus on the big issues at Bilderberg. It's simply a place for discussion," says Lord Healey. Formed in the spirit of post-war trans-Atlantic co-operation, the idea behind Bilderberg was that future wars could be prevented by bringing power-brokers together in an informal setting away from prying eyes. "Bilderberg is the most useful international group I ever attended. The confidentiality enabled people to speak honestly without fear of repercussions. "In my experience the most useful meetings are those when one is free to speak openly and honestly. It's not unusual at all. Cabinet meetings in all countries are held behind closed doors and the minutes are not published." That activists have seized on Bilderberg is no surprise to Alasdair Spark, an expert in conspiracy theories. "The idea that a shadowy clique is running the world is nothing new. For hundreds of years people have believed the world is governed
[news] Milorad Pavic: The Wedgwood Tea Set
Dear, Thanks to a friend, the Reality Macedonia team is able to share with you a beautiful artwork which provides a revealing outlook of the region. The comics The Wedgwood Tea Set by Z. Tunic and Z. Stefanovic first appeared in The Heavy Metal Magazine, N:o10 Special: Fantasy Special (2000). It's based on motives by Serbian writer Milorad Pavic. Available here: http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/specials/Wedgwood/ We hope you will enjoy it and use it as food for thought. Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
[news] News, 04.06.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News June 4th 2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Protests and Pope Greet Bush in Rome President George Bush's visit in Rome brings him face-to-face with the extremes of European opinion on the Iraq war. From the pope and mass protests to Berlusconi, the U.S. leader hears both sides of the issue. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_1225773_1_A,00.html -- Enjoy our World News newsletter? Why not also subscribe to Daily Bulletin, DW-WORLD's latest daily digest of the day's top German and European stories, delivered to you around 18:30 UTC. To find out more and sign up, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english/newsletter -- President Bush meets with Pope in Rome US President George W. Bush has met with Pope John Paul II in Rome on a three trip to Europe. The Pope, an ardent opponent of the Iraq war, told Bush that the situation in Iraq should be normalized as quickly as possible. Earlier, the US President met with the Italian President, Azeglio Ciampi. Bush is also in Italy for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Rome from the Nazis by Allied forces in 1944. Anti-Iraq war protestors shot fireworks at a military school on the outskirts of Rome and blocked a major highway, paralyzing roads leading into Rome. 10,000 police are on standby to deal with expected mass demonstrations later on Friday. On Saturday, Bush travels to France to take part in the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Iraq PM backs handover Iraq's new prime minister told the nation Friday that the presence of American and other foreign troops would guarantee Iraqi security after the nation regains its sovereignty on June 30. In his first televised address to the nation since his appointment last week, Iyad Allawi also said the newly appointed president, Ghazi al-Yawer, would attend the upcoming Group of Eight meeting in the US. In a separate speech to the UN Security Council, the Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari stressed the need to give Iraq full sovereignty. But he made it clear he believed the resolution, put forward by the US and Britain, did just that. He also said the new Iraq government should have a say in the future presence of US-led forces on its soil. Sharon fires ministers over Gaza pullout The Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has fired two rebel cabinet ministers ahead of a vote on his controversial Gaza pullout plan on Sunday. Sharon sacked Avigdor Lieberman and Benny Elon of the far-right National Union Party, saying he was determined to push his plan through. Sharon is proposing a pullout from all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four smaller ones in the West Bank by the end of next year. Israel would however keep control of the major West Bank settlements. Sharon's own Likud party has so far rejected the plan. One Israeli official said Sharon is facing his toughest crisis in recent years and is fighting for political survival. Russian market explosion kills 8 Russian officials say a powerful explosion at a market square killed at least nine people and wounded 40 others was a deliberate attack. Earlier reports said the blast had been a cooking accident. They say two powerful plastic explosives devices went off at midday at theKirov market in Samara, about 800 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Local officials say an explosive device had been planted near railway tracks. Police say they believe rival criminal gangs fighting for control over the market planted the bombs. Bangladeshis protest against Rumsfeld Thousands of people have poured into the streets of Bangladesh's capital Friday to protest US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's scheduled weekend visit. They burned the US flag and shouted derogatory slogans. Rumsfeld is expected to ask top officials to send Bangladeshi troops to Iraq after its new government takes over on June 30. China's SARS whistle blower missing The retired doctor who exposed the SARS cover-up in China last year, Jiang Yanyong, has been missing for several days, along with his wife, according to his daughter. Jiang blew the whistle on efforts by doctors to hide the SARS outbreak. His disappearance since June 1 coincides with the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Jiang had treated some of the victims of the military crackdown on June 3 and 4, 1989, and wrote a critical letter to party leaders last February urging a
[news] Osama Bin Laden Entered BiH in August Last Year
Osama Bin Laden Entered BiH in August Last Year 4 June 2004 | 16:18 | Tanjug World terrorist number 1 and one of the most searched people Osama bin Laden entered Bih in August last year together with 6 body guards through Sarajevo airport, reports the Serb Tanjug. The incident for the entering of terrorist number 1 has been discovered by chance when the chief of State Border Control Mile Juric presented a program rendering the tourists entering BiH through Sarajevo. The check that followed verified that Osama bin Laden really entered the country in August 2003 with another 6 men, apparently bodyguards.
[news] NATO Wants to Deploy Its Troops in Russia
NATO Wants to Deploy Its Troops in Russia ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. NATO cooperation with Ukraine is proceeding more successfully than with Russia. As reported by a Rosbalt correspondent, the remark was made by the director of NATO's information office in Moscow, Rolf Welberts during a roundtable discussion Thursday entitled 'Russia-NATO.' However, Welberts noted that 'NATO is trying to move towards cooperation with Russia.' In particular, Russia and NATO are currently negotiating on the deployment of NATO troops on Russian territory, and Russian troops on the territory of NATO countries (in accordance with the Agreement Between Members of the North Atlantic Alliance Regarding the Status of Their Forces - SOFA). http://www.rosbaltnews.com/2004/06/04/66787.html
[news] Fahrenheit 9/11 Opens June 25
June 4, 2004Fahrenheit 9/11 Opens June 25Hey Everyone...As you may have heard by now, we finally have a distributor in America for "Fahrenheit 9/11." Actually, two of them! Lions Gate Films and IFC Films have agreed to aggressively distribute "Fahrenheit 9/11" in theaters all across the country beginning three weeks from today on Friday, June 25th. We are, needless to say, extremely grateful for their courage (trust me, no matter what the potential box office may be, anyone who has considered taking on this distribution job has also met with a lot of pressure NOT to do it in the past month).They will open it on a record number of screens for a documentary. There is no stopping it now!These are great distributors. Jon Feltheimer, the man who runs Lions Gate, was the executive in charge of the company that produced my television series, "TV Nation." And the people at IFC (which owned Bravo) were the same people responsible for funding and broadcasting my other series, "The Awful Truth." So we are in very good hands.(And, as an added bonus, Lions Gate is a Canadian company. Once again, the Canadians to the rescue! It was also a Canadian company, Salter Street Films, that produced "Bowling for Columbine." I know, it's kinda sad we have to keep depending on our good neighbors to the north. But maybe this is the year we give 'em their Stanley Cup back.)There's a lot more to tell you --and Iwill write to you again over the next few days. I'm in the mood to spill some beans, much to the consternation of certain people. Oh well!Also, I have posted the trailer for "Fahrenheit 9/11" so that you can get your first glimpse at scenes from the movie--you can check it out at www.fahrenheit911.com.Thanks for all your wonderful letters of support -- they have meant a great deal to us.Save the date -- June 25! It's the first summer film where the special effectswill bereal...Yours truly,M-I-C (see ya real soon!)K-E-Y (why? because they can't kill this friggin' movie!)M-O-O-R-EP.S. For our fans in the rest of the world, don't worry -- you already have distributors. And most of you will also be able to see it this summer! Thanks.
[news] News, 03.06.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News 03.06.2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Powering Ahead with Renewable Energy As the international conference for the promotion of renewable energies enters its third day in Bonn, the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is preparing to bang his drum for a cause close to his heart. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_1224182_1_A,00.html -- Enjoy our World News newsletter? Why not also subscribe to Daily Bulletin, DW-WORLD's latest daily digest of the day's top German and European stories, delivered to you around 18:30 UTC. To find out more and sign up, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english/newsletter -- OPEC raises output to stabilise prices The Organisation of Oil Producing Countries has agreed to increase its production ceiling in an effort to stabilise surging world oil prices. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi told reporters in Beirut, that he and his 10 counterparts had agreed to increase the production ceiling by two million barrels per day, effective on July 1st. One month later, it is to be increased by another half a million barrels per day. That would bring the ceiling to 26 million barrels per day, from the current 23.5 million. The price per barrel of oil on the New York market has been hovering around the 40-dollar mark in recent days. That's its highest level in 20 years. The spike in prices has been driven in part by last weekend's terrorist attacks in the Saudi city of Khobar, in which 22 people were killed. Schroeder says the world is too dependent on oil Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has addressed delegates at the International Conference for Renewable Energies being held here in Bonn. He said recent global events had highlighted the need to reduce the world's dependency on fossil fuels. The executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Klaus Toepfer, also addressed the conference. He said more needed to be done to make the use of renewable sources of energy economically viable. Meanwhile, the government of the German state of Bavaria has denied a report that it plans to build a new nuclear power plant. The newspaper Die Welt reported that Bavaria wanted to keep that option open. Economics Minister Otto Wesheu, though, said Bavaria was considering keeping existing nuclear plants running beyond their planned closing dates. Two years ago, the German government passed a law to phase out the use of nuclear energy. US to keep control of troops in Iraq US Secretary of State Colin Powell says Iraq's interim government will not have the power to veto specific military operations by US troops. The comment came in a television interview broadcast on Wednesday. At the same time, though, Washington has insisted that the interim Iraqi government would be granted full sovereignty on June 30th. Meanwhile, several United Nations Security Council members say they still aren't satisfied with a revised UN resolution on Iraq. Germany and Russia joined China, France, and several other countries in expressing reservations about the new draft, which was presented by the United States and Britain earlier this week. US Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage has been in Brussels trying to drum up European support for the draft. Fighting rages in Kufa In the Iraqi town of Kufa, five civilians have been killed and 15 others wounded in clashes between US troops and Shi'ite Muslim militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr. This comes a day after nine Iraqis were killed and 44 wounded in Kufa and the nearby city of Najaf. In Washington, the US Senate has unanimously approved a 25-billion-dollar emergency request to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. President George W. Bush made the request due to the spiralling costs of US military operations in those two countries. At least one dead in Anti-UN demo in DR Congo At least one person has been shot dead and three others wounded after angry protestors stormed a United Nations base in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa. Thousands of people had gathered outside the UN mission's headquarters there, to demand that it pull out of the country. The demonstrations were sparked by the fall of the eastern city of Bukavu to rebel forces on Wednesday. British airports fully operational again Delays of upwards of an hour are being reported on most flights to and from Britain this Thursday. But airports are
[news] Russian President: Serbia Should Be Rebuilt By Those Who Destroyed It
-Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that if the international community had had enough courage and strength to prevent [in due time] the bombardments of Belgrade, today we would have had no such complicated situation in Iraq and the Iraqi crisis would be of totally different nature. -In my personal opinion, the funds for restoration should be provided by those who destroyed the country's economic facilities, Putin declared. They have caused destruction, but when it comes to restoration they are unwilling to do so, and bridges across the Danube are still lying in ruins and all European companies are suffering losses, the Russian president stated. 1) Weakest Link In Regional Stability: Talks Between Russian President, Serbian Prime Minister Focus On Kosovo Crisis 2) Russia To Discuss Kosovo With Serbian Leader, Denounces Ethnic Purges Of Kosovo Serbs 3) Russian President: NATO Nations Destroyed Serbian Economy, Refuse To Help Rebuild It 4) Russia: Serbian Infrastructure Should Be Rebuilt By Those Who Destroyed It, NATO Should Cease Attempts To Change Serbian Political System 5) Russia Ready For More Active Role In Kosovo Settlement 6) Russia, Serbia To Resume Military-Technical Cooperation 7) Russia Considers Participation In Serbia's Economic Reconstruction 1) http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160msg_id=4404216startrow=21date= 2004-06-03do_alert=0 Russian Information Agency (Novosti) June 3, 2004 PUTIN AND KOSTUNICA TO DISCUSS KOSOVO -Kosovo remains the weakest link in the context of regional security, thinks Moscow. Russia has denounced the recent outbreak of violence in the province that resulted in anti-Serb cleansing campaigns. MOSCOW/BELGRADE - Kosovo will be high on the agenda of talks between Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, says a source in the Kremlin. The meeting is set for June 3 in Sochi, where the two leaders will discuss the current state and the outlook of bilateral cooperation and exchange opinions on the situation in the state community of Serbia and Montenegro, Kosovo, and regional and European issues. Kosovo remains the weakest link in the context of regional security, thinks Moscow. Russia has denounced the recent outbreak of violence in the province that resulted in anti-Serb cleansing campaigns. The Kremlin source recalled that Moscow took a number of political steps in this connection and promptly provided (and continues to provide) humanitarian aid to refugee Serbs. Its Emergencies Ministry has established two tent camps for 1,000 beds each. Apart from foods and medicines, Russia has dispatched portable power generating units and equipment for field kitchens to Serbia. In May-June this year, we will dispatch 102 module houses to Kosovo, said the source. He added that the first batch of the houses had arrived in Serbia and Montenegro; 500 Serb children from Kosovo will come for holidays to Russia in June. The current task is to overcome the consequences of the extremist actions, said the Kremlin source. Moscow believes that international forces in Kosovo should maximally take into account the April 30, 2004 statement by the chairman of the UN Security Council, which includes the list of priority steps to be taken to stabilise the situation in the province. According to the Kremlin, The international community must act resolutely to normalise the situation and ensure strict and full compliance with Security Council Resolution 1244. As Kostunica told RIA before his first visit to Russia in the capacity of the head of the Serbian government, he plans to inform the Russian leadership about the Serbian government's plan of solving the problem of Kosovo and Metohija. Russia, being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is playing a major role in the Kosovo settlement, thinks Kostunica. In his words, a clear-cut and principled stand of Russia on the inviolability of borders in the region will greatly facilitate the preservation of stability and peace in the region and promote patient dialogue as a method of solving the problem. The premier believes that the solution of the Kosovo problem should be based above all on Security Council Resolution 1244 as a comprehensive and binding law that stipulates broad autonomy for Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia. Belgrade is convinced that such broad autonomy should also entail broad autonomy for Kosovo Serbs without changing the status of Kosovo, said Kostunica. He pointed out that Russia supports the striving for creating a stable state association of Serbia and Montenegro, which meets the interests of the Balkan region. The development and strengthening of economic ties and cultural cooperation will feature prominently at the talks with the Russian president, said Vojislav Kostunica. -- 2) http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=898601PageNum=2 Itar-Tass June 3, 2004 Putin to
[news] NewsWithViews: FORMER MARYLAND STATE SENATOR SOUNDS ALARM ON US DOLLAR
http://www.newswithviews.com/NWVexclusive/exclusive20.htmFORMER MARYLAND STATE SENATOR SOUNDS ALARM ON US DOLLARPosted: June 1, 20041:06 AM Easternby NWV Staff Writer© 2004 NewsWithViews.comFormer Maryland State Senator Tim Ferguson is warning "the Federal Reserve is planning to destroy the U.S. economy by printing the U.S. dollar in exponentially riskier quantities until it blows off the charts and crashes, and by easing credit and rates until the average individual and corporate debt loads are so enormous that the resulting massive distortions in the economy suddenly bring on an economic heart attack, leaving no possibility of a short or even medium-term recovery."Senator Ferguson went on to say in his recent piece published in Usury, Inc:"That great criminal enterprise - the Federal Reserve - has accomplished step #1, trashing and ending the dollar system, culminating a multi-year, massive, insane inflation of money supply and creditcorporations such as Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Farmer Mac, FHA, GM, Ford, and GE (which are actually banks), worked hand-in-hand with the Bank Cartel on this sickening, twisted game, switching from pumping credit cards and cars (which have gone to zero percent financing 12 months ago) to a last-ditch horrendous push into mortgage lending."This insane lending will destroy the lending institutions themselves, as Ford and GM are well aware, but the elite do not care, as after this collapse, there will only be one corporation in the world, and they are all pulling together to put everyone as deep into debt as possible, to assure than no American state or corporation or region will survive when the debt mountain suffocates all life."This is why so many CEOs are bailing out with insane profits from questionable practices which would normally ruin their career for life, as they have raped their corporation (the latest is Grasso of the New York Stock Exchange); but they know the game is over, and it is now or never - this is their last chance to make millions and move to an island, for insiders are able to see that the economy is literally going to hell, and it will not climb out of hell in their lifetimes."The two great props of the deathly-sick US economy - housing and cars - are gone forever, and can no longer be used to cover up the rapidly worsening fundamentals. Indeed, many are recognizing that these two alone - especially artificially low mortgage rates - have postponed a deep crash which should have occurred 2 or 3 years ago. Sadly, this extension has not been helpful, but has served a very useful purpose for the money elite, namely, greatly deepening private and corporate debt loads, exploding red ink in state and local budgets to dangerous levels, emptying pensions, creating a fatally large and exploding US budget and trade deficit, moving millions of jobs thousands of miles away, and expanding the dollar and derivatives mountain to ensure a global panic. This has been carefully coordinated worldwide from the headquarters of all world central banks, in Basel, Switzerland."Harvey Gordin of El Dorado Gold, a 30-year veteran of Wall Street recently warned, "Americans aren't listening to the warning signs. The debt owed by United States of America is about to spiral out of control, and there's really nothing anyone can do about it. Alan Greenspan has just warned lawmakers that the Social Security system which currently enjoys a budget surplus that it donates to the country's general fund will become over subscribed and begin operating in the red by the year 2008. Consequently, the influence of the Social Security surplus won't even help for much longer."The Federal Reserve Banking system is not part of the federal government. It is a privately owned and locally controlled consortium of banks. The privately owned Federal Reserve receives no funding from Congress and issues Class A stock to a limited number of powerful families and individuals, many of them foreigners who don't live in the United States.Historically, there has been great opposition to this private cartel of bankers:"Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are U.S. government institutions. They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the U.S. for the benefit of themselves and their foreign and domestic swindlers and rich and predatory money lenders." Chairman Louis T. McFadden, House Banking and Currency Committee, June 10, 1932.On May 23, 1933, Congressman, Louis T. McFadden, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system, The Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of United States Treasury for numerous criminal acts, including but not limited to, conspiracy, fraud, unlawful conversion, and treason.President Andrew Jackson, who in his first Annual Message to Congress recommended eliminating the Electoral College, undertook one
[news] A Serb started it all
One Serb with a single bullet changed the course of world history!!http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-boot3jun03,1,3319725.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions Los Angeles TimesJune 3, 2004COMMENTARY Risky Path for Pacifist Europe Bemoaning war's senselessness will not stop an enemy.Max BootJune 3, 2004World War I was far from the most evil event of the 20th century. It is hard to compete in sheer inhumanity with the Holocaust, the Stalinist terror, the Chinese Cultural Revolution or the Cambodian killing fields. Even World War II, which we recall through a fond haze of war memorial dedications and History Channel documentaries, had a far greater butcher's bill. But if the Great War was far from uniquely terrible, it was undoubtedly the most pointless and inexplicable of all the terrible events of the century gone by and the one that set the others in motion. We are still feeling its repercussions, from Iraq to the former Yugoslavia. The assassination of an Austrian archduke by Serbian terrorists on June 14, 1914, led to a bloody stalemate that toppled ancient dynasties (Ottoman, Romanoff, Hohenzollern, Habsburg), brought social outcasts to power (Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini) and created fresh grudges that sparked another global conflagration only 21 years after the end of "the war to end all wars." Without World War I, there probably would have been no Nazism in Germany and no communism in Russia and hence no World War II or Cold War. Untold millions might have lived out their natural lives in something approximating peace and quiet.I have been ruminating about these "might have beens" partly because of Memorial Day and partly because of a trip I took to France not long ago. Memorial Day is an American holiday, created after the Civil War to commemorate the sacrifices made by both sides. There was much suffering between 1861 and 1865, of course, but there was also a nobility that comes from fighting over large issues that admit no compromise: One side sought to preserve slavery and destroy the Union, the other to destroy slavery and preserve the Union. It is hard to discern any issues of comparable magnitude in all the bloodletting that occurred between 1914 and 1918. The pointlessness of it all overwhelmed me as I traveled in northern France, going from Verdun near the Meuse River to the Somme near the English Channel. On these fields, the youth of France, Britain and Germany fell by the bushel in 1916. [ In proportion to population, Serbs lost the highest percentage of people killed but no mention of that here. ]What stands out in my mind are the crosses row upon symmetrical row, stretching as far as the eye can see. "Mort pour la France," the French ones proclaim: "Died for France." The black German tombstones, planted on enemy soil, are denied the dignity of an epitaph. They simply bear the names of the soldiers buried beneath and the dates of their deaths. At the Somme there is a haunting inscription to the British dead: "Their name liveth forevermore." Almost 90 years later, there is still no agreement on why they fell. Was the war a ghastly accident that no one intended (the old consensus), or was it the product of calculated German aggression (the new consensus)? And what would have been the outcome if Germany had won: Would Kaiser Wilhelm II have established a benign forerunner of the European Union or a malignant forerunner of the Third Reich?Historian David Fromkin takes another crack at these riddles in his excellent new book, "Europe's Last Summer." All we know for sure is that the Great War solved nothing and improved nothing. We know something else as well: The conflict caused the Lost Generation to recoil from war-making altogether. Because one war had been senseless, many concluded that all wars must be senseless. The myopic militarism of the pre-1914 generation produced, in reaction, an equally myopic pacifism among the post-1918 generation that gave free rein to predatory states like Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. The children of 1945, in turn, spurned appeasement and held the line against communism for almost half a century. Now a new generation is in charge in Europe: the children of 1989. Their political sensibility was shaped by the end of the Cold War. Though they will celebrate the 60th anniversary of D-day on Sunday, World War II a struggle between good and evil no longer speaks to them. World War I exemplifies their vision of warfare: cruel and senseless. They do not want to fight alongside the United States, in Iraq or anywhere else; they see nothing worth fighting for.It is a great mistake they are making, but an understandable one. Walking around the neatly tended graveyards of Verdun or the Somme, it is easy to see why Europeans would want to forget about war. But has war forgotten about them? Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes a weekly column for the
[news] Kosovo Five Years Later
Z Magazine Online May 2004 Volume 17 Number 6 Europe Kosovo Five Years LaterIs intervention better than cure? By Aidan Hehir No military campaign in history was so heralded as the right thing to do by Western political leaders before, during, and after its initiation, as NATOs intervention in Kosovo in 1999. The unprecedented moralistic rhetoric that accompanied Operation Allied Force suggested that NATO was forging a peaceful era for the inhabitants of Kosovo and the wider world. It was, according to Tony Blair, A war fought for the values of civilization. However, the recent riots in Mitrovica (and the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq) illustrate that not only has the immediate aim of the intervention failed utterly, but also that the template established in Kosovo facilitated the escalation of aggressive Western hegemony in the post-Cold War world. In March 2004, amid the scenes of renewed violence, smouldering churches, and huddled refugees, bewildered UN officials witnessed the re-emergence of the Western theory that ancient ethnic hatreds ultimately determine events in the Balkans. In assessing the periodic violence in the Balkans, George Kennan stated, Deeper traits of character inherited, presumably, from a distant tribal past continue to plague the region and seem to be decisive as a determinant of the troublesome, baffling and dangerous situation that marks that part of the world. This ultimately racist outlook is echoed by chief UN officials currently administering Kosovo. While touring the province in the aftermath of the recent carnage that left 31 people dead and over 850 injured, the head of the UN mission in Kosovo, Harri Holkeri, solemnly declared, The concept of multiethnic Kosovo that the international community has been persistently attempting to implement in recent years is no longer tenable. In other words, the incompatible ethnic identities endemic in Kosovo have triumphed over the Wests earnest efforts to instill a culture of multi-ethnicity. This is simply untrue. The international community, in the guise of NATO, accentuated the ethnic fissure in Kosovo through its intervention in 1999 and the record of the UN since the cessation of Operation Allied Force has been marked by a tolerance of low level ethnic oppression more so than by any genuine attempts to reconcile the communities. Western diplomatic efforts in the Balkans throughout the 1990s were consistently predicated on the flawed logic of ethnic hatreds. Violence in the region was portrayed as the consequence of embedded ethnic prejudices, rather than Western interference. Whenever Western diplomatic initiatives failed, as they invariably did, it was because the locals couldnt extricate themselves from their primitive ethnic identities and genetic predilection for violence. If the region were to ever become civilized, the argument went, order would have to be forcibly imposed by the West. This contemporary variant of the white mans burden has engendered among Western actors in the Balkans a psychological detachment from the consequences of their actions and imbued the myriad internationals who wield enormous power throughout the region with a sense of cultural and political superiority. It is, therefore, not surprising that Holkeri could survey the wreckage of the March riots without seeing any correlation between the violence and Western actions. In reality, the violence did not occur despite Western involvement in Kosovo, but because of it. Where, then, did it all go wrong? Throughout the 1990s the EU and the U.S., at the behest of then-ally Miloevic, declared Kosovo an internal matter and the issue was consciously ignored. The lack of any provision relating to Kosovo in the Dayton Accords enflamed the Kosovar Albanians and support gradually shifted from the pacifist LDK party to the Kosova Liberation Army. By 1998, the conflict had escalated dramatically and
[news] Sweden not going to join NATO
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200406/02/print20040602_145129.html People's Daily Online June 3, 2004 World: Sweden not going to join NATO Sweden does not have any plans to join NATO, Sven Hirdman, Swedish ambassador to Russia, said at a briefing on Tuesday, presenting a new strategy of the development of relations with Russia. " This item is not on the agenda. We do not feel any need for joining NATO," he stressed. According to Sven Hirdman, "staying away from military alliances continues to be a principle of Sweden's foreign policy." Hirdman reminded that the Swedish policy of neutrality would turn 190 this year. "Sweden is not a member of any military bloc. At the same time, it develops active international contacts, takes part in peacekeeping operations and holds other actions of solidarity," he said. "The international situation changed radically after the end of the cold war. We do not feel any threat coming from either direction," the Swedish diplomat added. Source: Itar-Tass
[news] Hindu Nationalism in the Washington Times
The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com In India, parties overlapBy Raju G. C. Thomas Raju G. C. Thomas is the Allis Chalmers Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Marquette University. Published May 31, 2004 The defeat of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the recent 2004 national elections, and the return to power of the Indian secularist Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi, does not suggest a major reversal in religious ideology. Congress and BJP were never far apart, except to reflect the changing times after capitalism triumphed over socialism by the early 1990s. Hindu nationalism and Indian secularism overlap. The three Indian secularisms: Following independence in August 1947, Congress Party governments under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors declared India to be a secular democratic state, distinguishing itself from Pakistan, which was judged to be a theocratic authoritarian state. However, interpretations of secularism in India have not been consistent. Nehru's interpretation was that of the West. The state will not engage in religious activities nor promote any religion. Mahatma Gandhi's interpretation suggested that all religions are equal, and that the state will encourage the practice of all religions equally. According to the Hindu nationalist perspective, Hinduism acknowledges different pathways to God and, therefore, all Indians are Hindus. This view threatened to overwhelm the identities of Muslims, Christians and Sikhs. All three interpretations of secularism prevailed concurrently in independent India. But it was Nehru's Western concept that was overriding on the grounds that the separation of state and religion was an essential prerequisite for the conduct of Western democracy. But the concurrent prevalence of the Gandhian interpretation implied that Western secularism could easily slide into the Hindu nationalist variant. It is not a big step from "all religions are equal," to "all Indians are Hindus whatever their faith." This interpretation began to be imposed by the Hindu nationalists in the 1990s. Hindu nationalism Hindu nationalism, represented by the BJP, failed to be an election winner despite the fact that 82 percent of Indians are Hindus. Instead, Indian secularism represented by the Congress Party won. However, apart from Sonia Gandhi being a Christian who has embraced the Hindu way of life, Congress Party leaders were equally Hindu as the BJP. The question was which party represented the real Hinduism. The problem was that the demands of some of the more radical Hindu nationalists, such as that of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) for a "Hindutva," appeared not only "un-Indian" but also "un-Hindu." They promoted the concept of Hindutva in two separate contexts. First, that all Indians must recognize "the essence of being Hindu" as a way of life, including followers of other religions in India. Second, they sought to establish a political state called Hindutva, the land of the Hindus, replacing the various earlier connotations represented by "India" (the British legacy), "Hindustan" (the Muslim legacy) and Bharat (the legacy of the Buddhist emperor Ashoka of the 4th century BCE). The rise and fall of Hindutva First, Hindutva, in the context of Hindu essence, made no sense since Hindus do not believe in organized religion or an organized religious lifestyle. Hinduism is a "come as you are" religion. The Hindu masses resisted being told how to live like a Hindu, especially efforts to promote a focus on the god Rama in a land of several reincarnations of god. There was a temple-building spree in India over the last decade, funded often by the wealthy Hindu diaspora in the United States, which was also the main supporter of the BJP. But these Hindu temples lay largely empty. Hindus in India preferred the old relaxed religious lifestyle. Second, Hindutva as a Hindu state posed problems among those who could not identify with it: the sizeable religious minorities who constituted 18 percent of the population or 180 million; the uncertain religious-ethnic status of the former "untouchables" now known as Dalits, who are probably around 25 percent, or 250 million; and the potential transformation of the traditional practice of Hinduism from what was essentially a way of life into a more intense faith that required regular practice and commitment. There was a groundswell of opposition among the Hindu majority against this imposition by the Hindu nationalists, and no support for it from the Muslims, Christians and the Dalits. The return to Indian secularism Hinduism is a secular religion. Therefore, India remained a secular state, whether the government was headed by Congress or BJP, but often against the protests of the more radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)
[news] Five Hundred Children from Kosovo Arrive in Russia Today for Rest and Treatment
Five Hundred Children from Kosovo Arrive in Russia Today for Rest and Treatment MOSCOW, June 2. Five hundred Serbian children aged 9-14 from Kosovo and Metohi arrive in Russia today to undergo treatment and rest. The children will be located at 11 different health camps and sanatoriums in Central Russia, and will be here until June 23. As reported to a Rosbalt correspondent by the event's organizers, in addition to a June 4 concert called 'Wings of Hope,' the children will be greeted by Orthodox Patriarch Aleksei II in the Church of Christ the Savior. Before the concert, which will include some of Russia's best ensembles, the children will be able to visit the church. The visit by children from zones of inter-ethnic conflict is the continuation of the program 'Orthodox Christmas in Kosovo,' and was initiated by the Foundation of Andrei the First Called and the Center of Russia's National Glory. The program has received the blessing of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Aleksei II. Participants in the preparations included the administrations of Moscow, Kostroma, Nizhgorodskii, the Tver region, the Moscow Regional Committee for Social Security, the Russian Central Bank, the Moscow, October and Gorkii railroads, as well as other organizations. In January 2004, at the initiative of the Foundation of Andrei the First Called, Center of Russia's National Glory and 'Children of Kosovo,' representatives of government, social and religious organizations, as well as leading media outlets, visited Serbian villages in Kosovo and Metohi as part of the program 'Orthodox Christmas in Kosovo.' As a result of the visit, the issue of Kosovo was discussed in the Russian Federation Council, the Council of Europe, the UN and UNESCO, where the events in Kosovo were characterized as 'obvious genocide' taking place at the moment in the heart of 'civilized' Europe. http://www.rosbaltnews.com/2004/06/02/66772.html
[news] Four prerequisites and four solutions for Kosovo
Samardzic: Four prerequisites and four solutions for Kosovo (Serbian Government Website) There can be no lasting peace in Kosovo without a solution satisfactory to both parties, said Political Advisor to Serbian PM Slobodan Samardzic, adding that if Kosovo was not multiethnic, "the Albanians would not have peace with their neighbors". Speaking at a public debate called "Kosovo and Metohija - multiethnic or independent", organized by the Serbian-American Center, Samardzic said that it was necessary to do four things, before the problem of Serbia's southern province could be solved. First, the discussions on Kosovo's final status should be stopped, because conditions for that have still not been created. Second, the territorial status quo should be declared in this part of Europe. Third, a suitable mechanism to protect Kosovo Serbs should be established. Fourth, the question of the final status should be linked to the quality of internal relations in the province. "The problem of Kosovo could perhaps be solved with independence if Kosovo was ruled by democracy, but that would encourage other communities to demand the same. That would change relations in the region and trigger a chain reaction that would be hard to control," said Samardzic. Samardzic says that there are several solutions for the Kosovo problem circulating in the world at this point. The first is the US solution, presented by foreign policy experts such as Morton Abramovitz, Ted Carpenter and Martin Schlezinger, and that is the division of Kosovo. Samardzic said that this could also trigger a chain reaction, because ethnic Albanians would want the same in Macedonia. The second solution is the CoE's idea of the province's decentralization, which is closest to the Serbian Government's Plan for Kosovo, However, that solution does not envisage the regional level of decentralization, Samardzic said, and compared it to "treating a seriously ill person with an aspirin". The third solution is similar to the Ohrid Agreement, which in 2001 ended the conflicts between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. The leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo Hashim Thaci also proposed this solution at the recent meeting in Lucerne. The fourth solution is that the European Union takes over the mandate for the civil mission in Kosovo from the United Nations and the OSCE. According to Samardzic, that would be no different from the present state of affairs. Samardzic said that the events of March 17 and 18 made the international community admit that ethnic cleansing is taking place in Kosovo. Since then, "things are starting to develop more quickly, the real state of affairs is being recognized, but there is still no clear strategy for the solution of the problem".
[news] Petr Kolar nominated for U.N. envoy for Kosovo
Petr Kolar nominated for U.N. envoy for Kosovo PRAGUE- The Czech Republic today announced the candidature of Deputy Foreign Minister Petr Kolar for the post of special envoy of the United Nations Secretary General for Kosovo to replace Finn Harri Holkeri, who resigned at the end of May, Foreign Ministry spokesman Vit Kolar said. Kosovo has been under the U.N. administration for the fifth year. Kolar's nomination is confirming the Czech interest in the solution to the situation in the region, Vit Kolar said. Prague has been actively involved in the stabilisation of the Balkans for a long time, hence its active role in the United Nations, NATO and the EU, Vit Kolar said, adding that the Balkans was among the priorities of the Czech foreign policy. The U.N. will start discussing Kolar's candidature later this week. It is to be known within a month whether the Czech Republic will succeed with the nomination, Vit Kolar said, adding that if it does, Prague will be able to take part basically in the peaceful arrangement in the Balkans. At present, there is a Czech-Slovak battalion within the KFOR mission in Kosovo with 400 Czech and 100 Slovak military experts. They are in charge of the border protection with Serbia, protect the Serb ethnic minorities and search for weapons. In the past, another Czech, the former Czechoslovak foreign minister, Jiri Dienstbier, worked as a special U.N. commissioner for human rights in the region. Holkeri, a former Finnish premier, resigned two months before his mandate expired, citing bad health. He was facing sharp criticism inside and outside Kosovo for his inability to prevent bloodshed between Serbs and Albanians. In mid-March, 28 people died and 600 were injured there. Holkeri's resignation was also expected by the Kosovo Albanian government, which was not satisfied with his work. Serbia, too, which insists on NATO and the U.N. doing more for the safety of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo, demanded Holkeri's dismissal. Autor: TK. http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/index_view.php?id=70479
[news] KOSOVO PROBLEM IS TOP PRIORITY ON AGENDA OF PUTIN'S TALKS WITH KOSTUNICA
KOSOVO PROBLEM IS TOP PRIORITY ON AGENDA OF PUTIN'S TALKS WITH KOSTUNICA MOSCOW, June 2 (RIA Novosti) - The Kosovo issue will be a major theme of the talks of Russian President Vladimir Putin with Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. President Putin's meeting with Mr. Kostunica is slated to be held in Sochi on June 3. In the course of the meeting it is planned to discuss the state and prospects of bilateral cooperation, and to share views on the actual situation in the state community of Serbia and Montenegro, the Kosovo problems, and regional and European issues. Kosovo remains the principal outstanding issue in the context of the regional security, the Moscow officials note. Russia emphatically condemned the recent outbreak of violence, which led to the ethnic purges of the area's Serbian population. As the Kremlin source recalled, in this connection Moscow made a number of political moves, and promptly rendered and is continuing to render humanitarian aid to the Serbian refugees. Russia's MChS (Emergencies Ministry) arranged two tent camps for the Serbian refugees, each with accommodation for 1,000. Alongside foodstuffs and medicines, mobile power plants and equipment for field kitchens was sent to Serbia. "As many as 102 module houses will be supplied to Kosovo in May-June 2004," the Kremlin representative told RIA Novosti, and noted that the first consignments of houses had already arrived in Serbia and Montenegro. "The total cost of the humanitarian operation is in excess of one million dollars," the source noted. He also said that 500 Serbian children from Kosovo would have vacations in Russia this June. "The necessity to overcome the consequences of the extremist actions becomes particularly topical at this stage of Kosovo settlement," the Kremlin officials stress. According to the agency's source, Moscow proceeds from the idea that in its activity international presence in Kosovo should maximally take into account the statement by the chairman of the UN Security Council, which was adopted on April 30, 2004 and contains a list of priority moves to stabilize the situation in the area. "The international community must take the most resolute measures to normalize the situation, and to undeviatingly and fully implement resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council," the Kremlin officials believe. http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160msg_id=4400541startrow=1date=2004-06-02do_alert=0
[news] RUSSIA TO REFURBISH SERBIAN HYDRO STATION ON DANUBE
RUSSIA TO REFURBISH SERBIAN HYDRO STATION ON DANUBE MOSCOW, June 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia views as promising a number of joint investment projects with Serbia and Montenegro in the energy sector. This was disclosed by a source in the Kremlin on the eve of the forthcoming June 3 meeting in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chairman of the Serbian government Vojislav Kostunica. "Positive trends have emerged in trade and economic cooperation between the two states, the Kremlin notes. The volume of mutual trade in 2003 surpassed a billion US dollars for the first time in recent years and made up $1.245 billion, and taking into account the construction services rendered by the Serbian-Montenegro organizations on Russia's territory which amounted to $200 million it totaled $1.445 billion. In the words of the Agency's interlocutor, "there is a number of promising joint investments projects in the fuel and energy sector." The source inside the Russian President's administration spoke, primarily, about the accords on the reconstruction with Russia's participation of the Jerdap-1 hydroelectric power station. An accord to the effect that Russia will fully finance the reconstruction of the Jerdap hydro station on the Danube as repayment of the ex-USSR's clearing debt to the former SFRY was achieved at the talks in Moscow last November. The Russian side will implement this project which is estimated at over $100 million. The repairs at the hydro station will take six years with Serbian companies joining in this work. The refurbishing of the Jerdap 1 will make it possible to prolong its exploitation up to forty years and thus ensure Serbia's energy stability. The source also said that the Russian business community was dispaying interest in privatization projects in Serbia, including in the sphere of tourism. http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160msg_id=4402617startrow=1date=2004-06-02do_alert=0
[news] Orthodox Aim to Save Monasteries in Kosovo
ZENIT - The World Seen From Rome Code: ZE04060221 Date: 2004-06-02 Orthodox Aim to Save Monasteries in Kosovo ROME, JUNE 2, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Two Orthodox monks from Kosovo appealed to Rome to save monasteries of their Church severely damaged by Albanian radicals. The two monks, Sava Janijc and Andrej Sajc, of the Monastery of Decani, spoke to journalists about the attacks that took place in mid-March. The attacks severely damaged or destroyed at least 35 Orthodox monasteries, churches and seminaries, leaving dozens of people dead and hundreds wounded. The monks said that more than 150 Serbian religious sites have been devastated since the end of the war. The religious thanked the Italian contingent that is present in Kosovo with 2,000 military men, which has guaranteed the security of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Pec, as well as of the monasteries of Decani and Grazanica, treasures of Byzantine art. A committee entitled "Save the Monasteries of Kosovo" has been established to preserve and restore the province's Orthodox monasteries.
[news] RUSSIA IS A FRIEND IN NEED FOR SERBIANS IN KOSOVO
RUSSIA IS A FRIEND IN NEED FOR SERBIANS IN KOSOVO MOSCOW, June 2. (RIA Novosti) Russia is completing another stage of humanitarian assistance for Serb refugees in Kosovo who left their homes after ethnic cleansing this March. "So far, all the 100 houses for refugees have been loaded and half the number delivered to Serbia," deputy head of the Russian Emergency Ministry Yury Brazhnikov said on Wednesday. The houses have all conveniences, including heating devices. A modular chemist's shop and a shop have also been sent to Kosovo. "The houses will be major buildings in a town of Serb refugees in Kosovo, a sort of "Russian village" which is scheduled to open in early July," the deputy minister added. According to him, the first houses are being installed in a few residential areas in Kosovo. The houses are being switched to remaining electricity and gas lines. "What matters most is that the buildings are replacing Serbs' houses burnt by extremists. This corresponds to decisions by the UN and the government of Serbia and Montenegro on bringing the life in the territory back to normal and on the return of refugees," the Emergencies Ministry officer said. Apart from the houses, he continued, 30 items of equipment for schools, in particular items for biology classes will be transferred to Serbia. From March 24 through March 31, 2004, seven Russian Emergencies Ministry planes and a column of cars delivered some 200 tons of humanitarian assistance to refugees in Belgrade - medicaments, electric power stations, water purifying filters, tents, beds, beddings and rolling kitchens. A corresponding agreement was reached during a Belgrade visit by Russian Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu on March 22-24 and his negotiations with Serb Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. The assistance was meant for the first camp for a thousand people which accommodated Serb victims of Albanians' attacks on Kosovo. According to the UN civil missionin Kosovo, 28 people were killed and more than 800 injured in disorders on March 17-20. More than 4,000 Serbs were forced to leave their homes. They are living in Serb enclaves in Kosovo now. Albanian extremists burnt 30 Orthodox churches and monasteries as well as a few hundreds of Serbs' private houses and flats. http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160msg_id=4402629startrow=1date=2004-06-02do_alert=0
[news] Salva i Monasteri in Kosovo
Salva i Monasteri in Kosovo è una libera iniziativa di privati cittadini, aperta alladesione di individui e gruppi.Siamo studiosi, artisti, donne e uomini di cultura, amanti del patrimonio artistico-religioso del Kosovo e di ogni altro paese del mondo. Siamo addolorati dalle devastazioni spesso definitive avvenute nel mese di marzo 2004 a danno di chiese, monasteri, seminari ortodossi. Siamo colpiti dallindifferenza dei media che hanno dedicato scarsissimo spazio agli avvenimenti. La mancanza di informazione e, quindi, di una reazione dellopinione pubblica rischia di produrre un silenzio-assenso foriero di ulteriori distruzioni e dellabbandono totale di quanto rimasto.Vogliamo testimoniare la nostra solidarietà attivandoci per salvaguardare leredità artistica cristiana in Kosovo. Gli interessati a Salva i Monasteri in Kosovo , oltre ad aderire allappello, possono inviare segnalazioni, testimonianze, proposte. Attraverso il sito verranno informati di ogni ulteriore sviluppo di questa iniziativa. Cerchiamo così di essere vicini a chi sta difendendo un bene comune fra tanti pericoli e tanta violenza http://www.salvaimonasteri.org/
[news] Chronicles: Letter from Germany: A DISCRETE LITTLE DRANG by Srdja Trifkovic
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic/NewsViews.htm [more Chronicles Extra!] May 29, 2004 Letter from Germany: A DISCRETE LITTLE DRANG by Srdja Trifkovic I happened to be in Berlin on the day eight Central-East European (CEE) countriesPoland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuaniajoined the European Union, as well as Cyprus and Malta. There was no outward sign that, literally overnight, the capital of Germany had made a major step to becoming the geographic, political, and economic center of the E.U. There was equally no doubt that this has happened. A discrete little Drang, commented a veteran English journalist, but a Drang nonetheless. Expansion has increased the Unions population by a fifth to 450 million, and the size of the internal market by a quarter. And yet GDP in the expanded E.U. will rise by barely 5 percent. The combined GNP of all ten accession countries corresponds to that of The Netherlands, which has one-fifth of their population. The benefits of membership are more uncertain for the new members than used to be assumed. The old belief that Europe meant the removal of barriers, economic, physical and cultural, is now mixed with the alarm at bureaucratic meddling from an over-centralized Brussels. It is feared that the imposition of a myriad of E.U. regulations will prove detrimental to the cash-starved, low-cost, lower-tech producers east of the Oder-Neisse. Standards of food production, for example, reflect stringent E.U. rules in the core countries, such as Benelux, France and Germany, because manufacturers can absorb the cost of those regulations in the price their home customers are able to pay. Central and East European consumers, on the other hand, cannot afford higher prices that would include the cost of introducing and maintaining those standards. According to E.U. estimates, only 100,000 of Polands two million private farmers will remain on their farms once the country is absorbed into the E.U. In Slovakia 3,000 employees in the dairy industry have already lost their jobs because their employers lacked the capital necessary to meet the E.U. standards of production. Furthermore, new members are subjected to stringent production quotas. The end result may lead to German-processed foodstuffs on East European supermarket shelves. The survival of many small and medium-sized industrial companies in CEE is also uncertain as they struggle to comply with the Unions environmental and safety regulations that will cost the new members some 12 billion dollars this year alone. As thousands of Central and Eastern Europeans lose their jobs, they will continue to be denied access to the job market of the old E.U. core for years to come. Their prospects will be grim, if the former East Germany is an indicator. The German governments annual transfers to the former GDR, with its 17 million inhabitants are in the region of 60 billion dollars, and yet unemployment in eastern Germany remains twice as high as in the West. Some 75 million people in the E.U.s new members cannot hope for a tenth of that level of support from Brussels. Cui bono, then? Germany, of course. Its Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, as a leftist, sees the enlargement primarily as a means of overcoming nationalist ideologies and confrontations in the East which, if left to their own devices, could threaten the stability of Western Europe itself. But Germanys business community is primarily interested in the more tangible benefits. Since the fall of the Wall the Federal Republic has become the largest trading partner in Central-East Europe, accounting for an astonishing 45 percent of the trade volume between the E.U. and its 10 new members. The German Economic Institute in Cologne estimates that the share of German exports to CEE (9.2 percent) has now almost equalled the countrys exports to the United States (9.3 percent). Its direct investment in the eight new members are 36 billion dollars, with half of the capital going to the processing sectors such as automobile and chemical industries. The Volskwagen-owned Skoda thus accounts for ten percent of the Czech Republics exports, while a single VW plant in Bratislava accounts for over a fifth of Slovakias foreign trade. VW, Siemens and other German concerns are taking advantage of labor costs for a skilled worker in CEE that are just one eighth of the equivalent figure for a worker in Germany. As the historian Hannes Hofbauer notes in his new book (Vom Drang nach Osten zur peripheren E.U.-IntegrationFrom the push to the East to peripheral E.U. integration) German businesses will continue to benefit disproportionately from the combination of big outlet markets and cheap labor in the new E.U. as they are already well established in the region. Hofbauer detects in the latest E.U. enlargement a degree of continuity with previous attempts to unite Europe and notably with the German attempts to expand since 1871. A break
[news] News, 31.05.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News 31. 05. 2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Shattering the Euro Myth Ever since Germany replaced the Deutsch Mark with the Euro in January 2002, consumers have been griping about a hike in prices. A new study proves that it's all in their heads. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1431_A_1221917_1_A,00.html -- Enjoy our World News newsletter? Why not also subscribe to Daily Bulletin, DW-WORLD's latest daily digest of the day's top German and European stories, delivered to you around 18:30 UTC. To find out more and sign up, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english/newsletter -- Karachi bomb kills at least six In Pakistan at least six people have been killed and 10 others hurt in a bomb blast in the port city of Karachi. The bomb went off inside a mosque during evening prayers. It comes a day after sectarian riots in the city between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims sparked by the killing of a prominent Sunni Muslim cleric. Saudi forces searching for gunmen Three suspected al-Qaeda gunmen are still on the run from Saudi authorities after the weekend's shooting rampage and hostage crisis that killed 22 people in the oil city of Khobar. One attacker was arrested when Saudi commandos stormed the building in which the hostages were being kept. Nine hostages died during the liberation attempt. Dozens of others were freed. A statement attributed to the al-Qaeda terrorist network said the violence aimed to punish the kingdom for its oil dealings with the United States and to drive what it called crusaders from the land of Islam. The US Embassy in Saudi Arabia has reiterated a call to its citizens to leave the kingdom. Britain and Australia have warned their citizens that they fear further terror attacks may be imminent in the country. Burma arrests ten in Suu Kyi protests Witnesses in Burma say that authorities have arrested ten protesters for handing out leaflets and demanding the release of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The protests marked the anniversary of an attack by a junta-backed mob on Suu Kyi and supporters of her opposition National League for Democracy(NLD). Suu Kyi and the party's vice chairman, Tin Oo, were taken into custody and have remained in detention ever since. Burma is under growing pressure from around the world to free Suu Kyi and include her party in constitutional talks that began on May 17. Meeting to choose Iraqi president postponed A row over who should become Iraqi president looks set to extend into Tuesday, beyond a deadline set by UN envoy Lahkdar Brahimi. The US-appointed Governing Council favours its present leader, Ghazi Mashal Ajil Al-Yawer, an engineer and prominent tribal leader. Another contender said to be wanted by the US-led occupation coalition is former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi. The row comes only a month before the US-led coalition is due to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30. Meanwhile, a car bombing in Baghdad has killed at least two people and injured some 20 others. At the holy city of Kufa, US troops have clashed for a second day with militiamen loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. On Sunday two US soldiers and at least one Iraqi were killed. The fighting has cast doubt on a ceasefire bid announced last Thursday. Trial over Istanbul bombings suspended The trial of 69 suspected members of a Turkish al Qaeda cell has been suspended in Istanbul after a state security court ruled that it did not have authority to hear the case. The court said any judgements would have to be made by another court. The defendants have been charged over four deadly suicide attacks in Istanbul last November. Prosecutors have alleged that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden suggested targets for the attacks, as well as funding them. The suicide bombings in November targeted two synagogues, the British Consulate and a branch of the British-based HSBC bank. More than 60 people were killed and hundreds injured in those attacks. Cheney reportedly behind Halliburton oil deal US Vice President Dick Cheney is at the centre of further controversy over his involvement in setting up business deals in post-war Iraq. Time Magazine has reported that a Pentagon email was sent to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz regarding a multi-billion dollar oil deal between the US government and Cheney's former company, Halliburton. The email, dated March 5, 2003, reportedly
[news] Peter Maher's Response to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Article on Dubrovnik Destruction
Sorabia http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sorabia/message/51516 Peter Maher's Response to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Article on Dubrovnik Destruction Subject: to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Dubrovnik Destruction Restoration Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 12:19:54 -0500 From: John Peter Maher [EMAIL PROTECTED] May 28, 2004 Mr. Clarke Thomas Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Dear Mr Thomas, Your columns at first blush give the impression of a decent and open-minded man. But your column on Dubrovnik (May 12, 2004) re-runs a scenario that is fake from curtain to curtain. I went TO Dubrovnik, unconvinced by the PR being pushed in the media a la WMD. I took a professional cameraman. This was just three months after the destruction. The Old City was whole and entire. Your column perpetuates and propagates a hoax. You momentarily signaled your incredulity about a the reports of destruction, since you could discern no signs of damage such as you had seen in post-WWII Germany, but you nonetheless recited the mendacious lessons you learned from your handlers. You and I are only a few years apart in age. I turned twelve just a couple weeks before V-J Day. I took an MA in Greek Latin at The Catholic University of America [Washington DC] I taught English, French and Latin in 1956-57. In 1957 I enlisted in the USA, for assignment to the CIC; I volunteered to study Serbo-Croatian at the US Army Language school at the Presidio of Monterey. Then off on a two-year hitch at the Yugoslav desk of a spook unit in northern Italy. It was all a beautiful chapter in my life. In the following forty some years I've kept up with the languages, taught or done research in the US, England, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Now retired I am engaged in following the Yugoslav wars, with particular attention to war propaganda. I have traveled through Slovenia, Serbia, including Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Slavonia, and Dalmatia. (My sons' uncles served in the US and German armies; their maternal grandfather served in the In the Austro-Hungarian army in both world wars). Now to Dubrovnik. As you may be aware, old Ragusa was a city state for 750 years, when Napoleon turned the place over to Austria. The Austrians never incorporated Dubrovnik into Croatia. That narrow region, around Zagreb, was within the Hungarian Kingdom. Only in 1939, a big year for Hitler, was Dubrovnik hitched to the Croatia that had been tailored for political reasons, in violation of ethnic settlement patterns, and without consent of the governed, by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, then fearing German designs on the Adriatic. In 1945 the dictator Tito finalized the incorporation of the old Republic of Dubrovnik into Greater. In 1991, the Germans and their proxies, the Croatian fascist, were back. Non fascist Croats, Serbs and others were driven out of the Pearl of the Adriatic. That took place on 1 October, 1991, the exodus hidden under the smoke screen of the PR war to which you are a contributor. Now to Dubrovnik and me. In summer 1990 I ran into a Croatian-Hungarian student of mine in Chicago, who a year earlier had been positively glowing with happy expectation of returning as an English teacher to her home town in Serbia, Yugoslavia. Subotica, on the Hungarian border. The city has a big Croatian and Hungarian population. Serbia is the only multi-ethnic state left over from Yugoslavia. Her plans were now ashes: My parents just came home from a vacation near Dubrovnik, and they said I shouldn't come back home: there's going to be. She went on: fascist Croats have been trashing cars with license plates from Serbia, even pushing them into the sea. Over a year before the war hit page 1, in spring 1990, I had read in Yugoslav newspapers, while I was on a Fulbright in Slovenia, that Croat militants were torching vacation houses on the Adriatic belonging to Serbs AND Slovenes. The next summer, in 1991, the only tourists in Dubrovnik were Croatian irregulars toting German weapons provided illegally by Germany. Check the hotel record for tourist records. In August 1991, Croatian irregulars attacked a Yugoslav Army base at the approach to the Bay of Kotor, a couple dozen miles south of Dubrovnik. The Croats murdered unarmed recruits of the Yugoslav Peoples Army, a multi-ethnic force. That was the legal army of a regular state. It was a multi-ethnic force, not Serbian, nor Serb-dominated. There were Slovenes, Albanians, Macedonians, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs from all the Serb lands - and Croats. Many were killed. The Commander in Chief was a Croat, not Slobodan Milosevic. A naval intelligence officer told me that this action was filmed from start to finish by the Counter-Intelligence Service of the Yugoslav Peoples Army (YNA). They stood by and watched. Orders is orders. From October to December 1991, Croat militants repeatedly forayed out from the walled Old City to attack YNA forces, who answered their fire. There are your 150 Croatian
[news] News, 30.05.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News May, 30th, 2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Kaplan Case Casts Doubt on Immigration Compromise The long-winded case of Metin Kaplan, the radical Muslim cleric, is threatening the recent German immigration compromise. The conservative opposition has renewed calls that the law include tighter security measures. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_1221370_1_A,00.html -- Enjoy our World News newsletter? Why not also subscribe to Daily Bulletin, DW-WORLD's latest daily digest of the day's top German and European stories, delivered to you around 18:30 UTC. To find out more and sign up, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english/newsletter -- Khobar hostages freed, some killed Saudi special forces say they have freed most of the Western and other hostages being held in the eastern city of Khobar by a group of men suspected of having links to the al Qaeda terror network. Members of the security forces jumped from helicopters onto the roof of a housing compound amid gunfire earlier this Sunday. They reportedly found the bodies of nine dead hostages after they entered the building. At least two militants are said to have been killed while two others were arrested. The militants had barricaded themselves in the compound with an estimated 50 foreign hostages on Saturday, after killing at least nine Saudis and seven foreigners in attacks on complexes housing Western oil firms. Israeli cabinet debates Gaza pullout Israel's cabinet is mulling over a revised proposal by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to unilaterally pull out of the Gaza Strip. However, Sharon has reportedly told ministers that they would not be asked to vote on his plan during this Sunday's session. Observers say this indicates that Sharon doesn't have enough support for the plan, to win a cabinet vote. A vote is now expected to be held next week. There have also been reports that the prime minister may fire some cabinet ministers to ensure that the vote goes his way. Sharon's Likud Party rejected his original withdrawal plan in a referendum earlier this month. Talks begin over Iraqi posts The man who's set to become Iraq's new prime minister has begun talks with the United Nations envoy to Iraq on the formation of an interim government. Iyad Allawi won the unanimous approval of the US-appointed Governing Council on Friday. But now there now appear to be differing opinions over who should be president. UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and US administrator Paul Bremer are said to favour former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi. The majority of the Governing Council, however, prefers Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, a civil engineer. Meanwhile more clashes have been reported in Najaf between US troops and militiamen loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. This comes despite a ceasefire that was announced on Thursday. Blair to decide on more troops for Iraq British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he plans to make a decision on whether to send more troops to Iraq in the coming weeks. There's been speculation that another 3,000 British soldiers would be deployed to help fill the gap left by the withdrawal of Spanish forces. Speaking in a British television interview on Sunday, Blair also said he hoped to be able to significantly reduce the number of troops deployed to the country, by the end of next year. Britain currently has about 8,500 soldiers in Iraq. Bad weather hinders Haiti aid efforts Aid agencies say bad weather is hampering international rescue efforts to deliver aid to the victims of floods in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. On Saturday, a minor earthquake struck the area making it difficult to recover bodies on both sides of the border. Torrential rain and mudslides have claimed the lives of about 1,000 people over the past week. Thousands have been left homeless and are now dependent on food aid for survival. US and Canadian troops with a multinational force in Haiti have been flying in food and other supplies to the flood victims. Stoiber calls on Czechs to admit to past injustice Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber has called on the Czech government to concede that the post-war expulsion of three million ethnic Germans from what was then Czechoslovakia, was wrong. Speaking in Nuremberg at the annual meeting of a group representing the Sudeten Germans, Stoiber called on the European Union to put pressure on the Czech government to
[news] Air Canada: waiting at the brink
Air Canada: waiting at the brink by David Orchard For several months the fate of Air Canada has hung in the balance. The same voices raised against a national oil company, a Canadian ship building industry, or a national railway are busy explaining that the idea of a national airline is also both unnecessary and out of date. Air Canada (then Trans-Canada Airlines) was created in the 1930s by the government of Canada and the Canadian National Railway. In the words of Peter Pigott, author of National Treasure: The History of Trans-Canada Airlines, Trans-Canada Airlines, like the national rail lines before it, was conceived of as a venture to overcome Canada's "vast geographical barriers, thwart the Americans and unite the country." Endorsed by both the opposition Conservatives and the CCF as a publicly controlled company, this "flying symbol of national identity -- a maple leaf with wings," was incorporated by Mackenzie King's government in 1937; transnational mail and passenger operations began in 1939. The airline developed a reputation for good service and technological expertise. In 1955, it was the first North American airline to use turbo prop aircraft commercially, revolutionizing air travel on the continent. It pioneered development of the black box technology and in 1961 the world's first computerized reservation system. In 1982, Air Canada won Washington based Air Transport World's Technical Management award for "its consistent record of excellence over the years"; its fleet management was cited as "among the best in the world." In 1985, it topped 700 airlines to win Air Transport World's coveted award for excellence. None of this was good enough apparently. Privatization would be better, Canadians were told. In 1989 the company was put on the market. Next we were informed that free trade in the air was necessary and in 1992 the Open Skies Agreement was signed with the United States. (In pointing out that the Open Skies Agreement could lead to the end of Air Canada, this writer was roundly chastised for being stuck in the past, unable to move with the times or appreciate the new opportunities now available to Canadian airlines with the vast U.S. market at their beck and call.) Now Air Canada is in bankruptcy protection, begging a Hong Kong billionaire, then a New York vulture fund or a foreign bank to take it over. On a daily basis Canadians are admonished not to expect government intervention to save the airline or continue to cling to nostalgic notions about national flag carriers. If the market does not want a national flag carrier, so be it. Several European national airlines are in trouble also and their governments aren't rushing to save them. We must let the market rule. However, Canada is not a small, densely populated country like many European nations, any one of which could fit into the Toronto-Metro corridor, and which already possess well developed transportation options. It is the second largest nation on earth, with a widely scattered population and we need a national airline today every bit as much as we did in the 1930s. Who exactly will serve Quebec City, Saskatoon, Thunder Bay, Baie Comeau, Flin Flon, Kamloops, Charlottetown and Saint John after the market has spoken and our Minister of Transport has resolutely refused to intervene? Many of these centres were not in the past, and are not today, attractive enough for private airlines to maintain operations there. Those whose ideology leads them to campaign endlessly against public ownership would see the essential Canadian institutions disappear one by one until there is no infrastructure left to serve and hold our far flung nation together. Past Canadian governments, both Liberal and Conservative, worked hard to create what historian W.L. Morton has called "agencies of national purpose." Thanks to their foresight and determination we have a nation. Our current government, however, seems to pride itself on downsizing, cutting or selling off these very same institutions on the grounds, apparently, that they cost money to maintain. The official Opposition urges them to cut and eliminate even faster. Canada today is a richer country than it has ever been. Yet, our political leaders appear bereft of any sense of national purpose, let alone concrete proposals to give Canadians -- French or English speaking -- a sense of national meaning and direction. Economist June Menzies, adviser to John Diefenbaker in the 1950s, warned that a nation without a vision dies. How long can a nation with political leaders focused on cutting taxes and dismantling its vital infrastructure survive? Some of the world's most efficient companies are publicly owned and there are numerous Asian, European and North American examples testifying to that. In fact, when Jaguar, Rolls Royce and Chrysler failed, public intervention rescued them and set them back on their feet. A mixture of
[news] News, 29.05.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News May 29th 2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Environmental Protection is Thriving in Germany German Environment Minister Trittin, who has clashed with industry and unions in the past, argues in an interview with DW-TV that eco- friendly policies don't necessarily run contrary to business interests. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_1220898_1_A,00.html -- Enjoy our World News newsletter? Why not also subscribe to Daily Bulletin, DW-WORLD's latest daily digest of the day's top German and European stories, delivered to you around 18:30 UTC. To find out more and sign up, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english/newsletter -- Several westerners killed in Saudi Arabia attack At least six people have been killed in Saudi Arabia after gunmen attacked Western housing compounds in the eastern city of Khobar. Some reports have placed the death toll has high as 16. The US embassy in Riyadh has confirmed that an American is among the dead, while British authorities say they are checking reports that a Briton was also among the fatalities. Security officials said the gunmen attacked buildings containing offices used by major Western oil companies. The gunmen are believed to have taken an unknown number of people hostage. Security forces have reportedly stormed the compound where the attackers are hiding. The al Qaeda terror network has purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack. More fighting in Najaf and Kufa For the second day running there's been fighting in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kufa between US troops and Shiite Muslim militants. Three civilians were reported wounded in clashes in Kufa while US soldiers and followers of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr exchanged gunfire in Najaf. On Friday four people were killed and 15 wounded in Kufa. It comes despite a ceasefire agreement for Najaf reached on Thursday between al-Sadr and US forces. US endorses Iraq's new prime minister The United States has given its backing to the nomination of Iyad Allawi as Iraq's new prime minister. The country's Governing Council had earlier unanimously voted for the Shi'ite Muslim politician to take over as Iraq's leader when the new government assumes power on June 30. The United Nations has also endorsed Allawi. Officials said the UN envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, respected the Governing Council's decision and was prepared to work with Allawi on the selection of the other posts in Iraq's interim government. Iran earthquake kills at least 35 A helicopter carrying senior Iranian officials has crashed on a flight to view damage caused by Friday's earthquake in the north of the country. Official news media said the governor of the province of Qazvin, his deputy, and the chief of police were killed. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. At least 35 people were killed and 250 injured in the quake, which measured 6.2 on the Richter scale. The epicentre was located about 70 kilometres north-west of the capital, Tehran. Violent clashes at EU-Latin America summit Violent clashes have marred the end of the EU-Latin American summit in the Mexican city of Guadalajara. Around 20 people were injured and at least 90 arrested in the riots believed to have been started by students. Riot police fired tear gas and used water cannon to control the situation. French President Jacques Chirac was forced to cancel a news conference. Earlier the leaders of around 60 European, Latin American and Caribbean nations issued an indirect warning to the United States saying it must abandon its go-it-alone tendency. The leaders drafted a statement critical of US foreign policy and allegations of torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq. They said they wanted the United Nations to remain the primary organisation to resolve international conflicts. Pakistan test fires missile Pakistan says it has successfully testfired a nuclear-capable missile. A military spokesman said the medium-range missile could carry all types of warheads and was tested to strengthen Pakistan's defences. He said the government had informed its neighbours, including India, of the test. It comes just days after India's new government took office amid pledges to continue the peace process with Pakistan. Heavy rains threaten Haiti, Dominican Republic Heavy rains have been forecast for Haiti and the Dominican Republic as
[news] New class of cadets to graduate from OSCE Kosovo Police School
New class of cadets to graduate from OSCE Kosovo Police School PRISTINA, 28 May 2004 - A class of 328 new police cadets, including 52 women, will graduate from the OSCE Police Service School (KPSS) in Kosovo tomorrow, bringing the total of trained officers to 6,586. Class 28, which is the first to have undergone the expanded 20-week long basic training course, includes 58 cadets representing some of the smaller communities of Kosovo. Brigadier General Rick D. Erlandsen, Commander of KFOR's Multi-National Brigade East, will address the graduates at the ceremony. Courses at the KPSS are co-taught by local Kosovo Police Service instructors and international police experts. The training includes general policing, firearm instruction, defensive tactics and staff development. Apart from the basic course, which takes place under the guidance of OSCE international police instructors at the KPSS, cadets also undergo a 15-week field training with international police from the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. The basic training course was expanded to place greater emphasis on the practical application and evaluation of students' skills and competencies. As part of its mandate, the OSCE Mission in Kosovo will provide police training for locally recruited officers until the end of 2005. The School was opened in September 1999 by the OSCE. Following the graduation ceremony, there will be an informal reception for graduates, families and guests. Media representatives are invited to attend this event, which will take place on Saturday, 29 May, at 10.30, in the Sports Centre of the University of Prishtinë/Pristina. PA OMIK PT 15/04 Edita BuçajPress OfficerOSCE Mission in KosovoTel: +381 38 500 162 ext.118Mob: +377 44 500 151
[news] Milosevic and Genocide: Has the Prosecution Made Its Case?
FPIF Commentary Milosevic and Genocide: Has the Prosecution Made the Case? By Stacy Sullivan | February 19, 2004 Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org When prosecutors opened their case against Slobodan Milosevic on February 12, 2002, they told the court that not only would his trial provide the world with a full picture of the medieval savagery that stalked the Balkans throughout the Nineties, but that they would also prove that the former Serbian president was guilty of the gravest crime known to mankind--genocide. Two years on, after hearing nearly 300 witnesses--some of them high-level insiders who have turned on their former leader--and presenting thousands of pages of documents, including telephone intercepts, military orders, and transcripts of political meetings, they are resting their case. But many legal experts say they fear that the prosecution has not made the case for genocide, in part because the United Nations tribunal has set the bar for doing so extremely high. Already, in what appears to be an effort to brace tribunal observers for a possible acquittal, chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte has warned that the Belgrade authorities have jeopardized the genocide case by failing to provide her with access to military documents from the state archives. Milosevic is the man alleged to have orchestrated the break-up of Yugoslavia and the horrific atrocities that went with it. Given the mountain of evidence prosecutors have tendered as evidence, showing his active involvement in arming Serbs in both Bosnia and Croatia --not to mention his role in Kosovo--few have any doubts that the former president will be convicted of crimes against humanity. But in order to prove genocide, prosecutors need to show that Milosevic orchestrated the crimes with the specific intent to destroy Bosnian Muslims as a people. Since the prosecution has not been able to present unequivocal evidence of genocidal intent--a military order calling for the liquidation of all of the Bosnian Muslims, for example--the experts say that based on earlier rulings, they have serious doubts that the judges will issue a guilty verdict. An acquittal, they say, would have serious implications not only for attempts to prosecute genocide in the future, but also for efforts that might be undertaken to prevent it from occurring. It would also disappoint victims, and provide ammunition for those who would deny that genocide took place. If the court does not find Milosevic guilty of genocide, that would be a very serious problem because it would mean that the definition of genocide is so specific that it is unmanageable, said Ivo Banac, a history professor at Yale University who was recently elected as a member of Croatia 's parliament, representing the Liberal Party. This would have enormous implications for conflicts yet unknown. Samantha Power, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Problem From Hell: America in the Age of Genocide, which examines why states don't act to prevent genocide, said she feared an acquittal would provide governments another reason to remain passive. If the bar is that high, it will be so much easier for states to argue that something is not genocide. That will make it difficult to prosecute future genocide cases. If Milosevic is acquitted, and if the Iraqi tribunal were to take the standards set by the UN tribunal, Saddam Hussein in the Kurdish case would probably not meet that standard, said Power. By far the most serious consequences of an acquittal on genocide charges, however, would be for Bosnia's victims. According to Power, One of the downsides in the creation of a stigma around the word and the crime of genocide is that victims often feel somehow that they are being told that their suffering isn't worthy if they don't get a genocide conviction. Bosnian Muslims may be made to feel that they didn't make the cut. How the Bar Was Set Prosecutors at the UN tribunal for Rwanda have managed to secure about a dozen genocide convictions. But as experts interviewed by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) pointed out, it was easier to prove genocide in Rwanda . In Rwanda, the genocidaire [perpetrators of genocide] killed 75 per cent of the Tutsi population, and they announced their plans beforehand, said
[news] Editor of Montenegrin opposition paper shot dead
Editor of Montenegrin opposition paper shot dead PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro : The editor-in-chief of Montenegro's main opposition daily was shot dead by an unknown gunman overnight, sparking concern over freedom of the media in the Balkan republic.The assailant opened fire on Dusko Jovanovic outside the offices of the Dan newspaper just after midnight and then fled, said Mili Prelevic, a Dan editor who witnessed the attack."Around 4:00 am (0200 GMT) doctors in the hospital told me and other colleagues that Jovanovic had died," Prelevic told AFP.Montenegro's Interior Ministry offered a reward of one million euros (1.2 million dollars) for "every correct piece of information on the identity of a direct executor or a person who has ordered the murder."Interior Minister Dragan Djurovic has also called on his counterparts from France, Britain, Germany and the United States to send their criminal experts to Montenegro, to help the republic's police in solving this crime, the statement said.Journalists, politicians and citizens gathered at the newspaper offices in the Montenegrin capital Podgorica on Friday, lighting candles and laying flowers at the site of the shooting.Leaders of Montenegro's opposition parties said they would organize a protest against Jovanovic's murder this weekend.Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic and Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic condemned the murder, and called on the interior ministry to conduct a thorough probe to find the perpetrators of the attack."This was an attack on the peace and stability of Montenegro and a threat to the security of its citizens," Djukanovic said in a statement.Press organizations and rights groups condemned the killing of 40-year-old Jovanovic, a former opposition lawmaker who has been no stranger to controversy in his career at the newspaper."There can be no free society without a free media," the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission in Serbia and Montenegro said in a statement."And there is no free media if journalists have to work in an atmosphere of violence and fear," it said.Reporters Without Borders called on Djurovic to "ensure that investigators do not rule out the possibility that the killing was linked to Jovanovics work as an editor."Media in Montenegro and in Serbia, the much-larger republic to which it is linked in a loose federation, urged authorities in Podgorica to find the culprits who were trying to use violence to stifle free speech.Jovanovic was killed by "those who have been trying to silence public words by threats and violence," the Montenegrin Association of Journalists said in a statement.The daily Dan has been involved in several judicial cases and Jovanovic often criticised the ruling coalition led by Djukanovic, who had tried to sue him and the newspaper for slander.The newspaper was, for example, accused of libel in connection with a case concerning cigarette trafficking in the Balkans. It is said to support the opposition and the Peoples Socialist Party, which backed former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.The daily said in a statement that Jovanovic had received many death threats for his paper's reporting of various affairs allegedly involving some top Montenegrin officials.Lidija Bozovic, the daily's attorney, said Jovanovic "would not have been dead if the police had done their job" to protect the journalist.Slavoljub Scekic, the editor-in-chief of Montenegrin private daily Vijesti, expressed "shock that such a monstrous crime could be committed in Montenegro."There have been unsolved and premediated murders before, but for the first time a journalist and editor-in-chief of a newspaper was killed," he told reporters.Jovanovic was also charged with contempt of court by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague after his paper revealed the identity of a witness whose identity was being protected. The UN charges were withdrawn after Jovanovic apologized to the court.Montenegro, a tiny Adriatic republic once part of the former Yugoslavia, has seen its journalists saddled with draconian media laws including one imposed in 2002 that limited the sources journalists could use for stories, the length of their articles and the number of pieces they could publish about each political party.- AFPhttp://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/87437/1/.html
[news] David Binder: The Cowards of Kosovo
http://news.serbianunity.net/bydate/2004/May_27/9.html SERBIAN UNITY CONGRESS The Cowards of Kosovo, David Binder, May 27, 2004 Courage on the battlefield is our common property, but you will find not infrequently that very respectable people lack civil courage. Bismarck Americans of my generation (Jahrgang 1931) grew up believing that German soldiers were brave. We had to, hearing the grim stories of our fathers and uncles from World War I and our older brothers from World War II (mine was killed in action in 1944). Alas, no more. From what I hear and read from the battleground that is Kosovo, the German contingent of KFOR peacekeepers is led by men who plainly lack bravery. I don't extend that characterization to the ordinary Landser; they are only following orders, as one would expect of German soldiers. I mean the officers. We are talking about the commanders of the 3,600 Bundeswehr soldiers stationed mostly in southwestern Kosovo, with headquarters in the ancient city of Prizren. Specifically General Holger Kammerhof, the KFOR commander, and his deputies. According to the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), 61 KFOR soldiers were among the 900 persons wounded in the Albanian mob violence that began March 17 in Kosovo. Some were Italian soldiers defending the Serb monasteries and churches at Decani and Pec; some were Greek soldiers defending churches in Urosevac. Not one German was reported among the wounded. Similarly, German military installations are intact in contrast to Italian and others belonging to KFOR which were destroyed because they at least made some resistance, a Serbian churchman told me. The toll in Prizren and vicinity was horrific: Nine Serbian Orthodox churches damaged or destroyed, including four medieval shrines, their frescoes, icons and scriptures. Among them were the Holy Mother of God Ljeviska Church and the Holy Archangels Monastery, both from the 14th century. Serbian church officials reported Colonel Dieter Hintelmann, the KFOR commander in Prizren, told them on April 10 that the German force could not prevent the burning of the churches because 500 Albanian women and children blocked their vehicles from leaving their base. Not only German soldiers but also the 3,500-strong UNMIK police under Commissioner Stefan Feller (from North Rhine Westphalia) largely failed to act against Albanian mobs bent on torching Serb buildings. On April 6, Wolfgang Zillekens, the UNMIK police commander for Prizren (also from North Rhine Westphalia) stated that he was proud of the work of his detachments during the recent demonstrations and that he did not expect mass actions in the future. That makes sense only because nearly everything Serb in his jurisdiction has already been destroyed. Here is what Father Sava Janjic, spokesman of the Decani Monastery, had to say this week: Germans definitely did not do anything to protect a single Orthodox church in Prizren. Demonstrations in Mitrovica began in the morning of March 17. They could have deployed their forces in Prizren to prevent escalation of violence but they remained in their base with very few soldiers outside. When the mob gathered in the streets of Prizren they say that they could not protect the Bishop's residence from Molotov cocktails and had to evacuate the priest. Afterwards the church was burned. The Seminary, the residence, Serbian homes were in flames. But they still had time to block the road which goes along the gorge of Bistrica river to the Holy Archangels Monastery... The crowd...headed several hours later after burning the Prizren holy sites towards the monastery which is 5 kilometers to the south. They did nothing... When the crowd came to the monastery they only evacuated the monks and let Albanians burn the monastery... The German flag over the monastery is still fluttering intact. Now they keep 35 Serbs from Prizren in a gym in their base and refuse to let our Church representatives visit them because many of them were beaten and have bruises and the Germans are afraid of photographs. They did not even allow a Serbian Orthodox priest to serve an Easter mass for these 35 wretched refugees. They previously did not give permission for these refugees to be taken to the Serbian enclave for the Easter holidays. Bishop Artemije of the Diocese of Raska-Prizren and Kosovo- Metohija, said of the Germans, Their mission has failed. They should leave. Father Janjic added, We wish they could leave the Balkans after all they did in both World wars, and not be engaged in peace missions in the Balkans. --- Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
[news] The wisdom of Olympics
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStoryc=StoryFTcid=1084907888610 The Financial Times (UK) Home UK Greek minister doubts wisdom of Olympics By Kerin Hope in Athens Published: May 28 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: May 28 2004 5:00 Greece's public works minister yesterday publicly expressed doubts about the wisdom of hosting this year's Olympic Games in Athens, in the face of cost overruns of as much as ?2bn (£1.3bn) on an original budget of ?4.6bn. George Souflias told a parliamentary committee: "I have to question whether our country should have undertaken the organisation of the games." His statement comes less than 10 weeks before the August 13 opening ceremony and amid growing anxiety over whether Athens can deliver a successful event. Figures presented to the committee show the ?1.1bn budget for constructing and refurbishing sports facilities has already been exceeded by ?500m. The security budget has risen from ?650m to ?1.2bn because of the increased threat of a terrorist attack. Greeks hailed as a triumph the 1997 decision by the International Olympic Committee to return the games to their birthplace. But the burden of financing the Olympics has already pushed Greece's budget deficit above the ceiling permitted under the eurozone's stability and growth pact. The deficit is this year projected to reach 3.2 per cent of gross domestic product for the second successive year. The total cost overrun is likely to rise to ?2bn when the costs of building a new suburban rail line and tram system are included. Greece's previous Socialist government decided to finance the Athens games entirely out of the public investment budget after an initial plan to involve private sector finance met with political opposition. The dispute over funding resulted in significant delays in launching tenders for games-related projects. Construction of new sports stadiums, the Olympic villages and media facilities started in 2001, four years after Athens was chosen as host. The biggest cost overruns involve showpiece canopy projects and a landscaping plan in the main sports complex.
[news] Filmmaker Moore Says He Has Berg Footage
Filmmaker Moore Says He Has Berg Footage http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/news/celebrity/sns-ap-michael-moore-berg, 0,1668723.story?coll=mmx-celebrity_heds Filmmaker Moore Says He Has Berg Footage By Associated Press NEW YORK -- Filmmaker Michael Moore, whose incendiary new documentary lambastes President Bush's handling of the war, said Thursday that he has footage unused in the film of Nicholas Berg, the American civilian later beheaded in Iraq. The footage, of an interview with Berg, "is approximately 20 minutes long. We are not releasing it to the media," Moore said in a statement. "It is not in the film. We are dealing privately with the family." Neither Moore nor his representatives would describe the nature or contents of the interview with Berg, who held staunch pro-war views. No one answered the phone Thursday at the home of Berg's parents in West Chester, Pa. "Fahrenheit 9/11," which recently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, accuses the Bush camp of stealing the 2000 election, overlooking terrorism warnings before Sept. 11, 2001, and fanning fears of more attacks to secure American support for the Iraq war. Moore's assault on U.S. policy got him into trouble with Disney, which refused to let subsidiary Miramax release "Fahrenheit 9/11." He is still trying to work out a deal for U.S. distribution.
[news] The Yugoslavian Fairy Tale
The Yugoslavian Fairy Tale By George Szamuely | May 28, 2004 Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) It is always fascinating to watch the eagerness with which so-called progressives unquestioningly accept an official history full of virtuous U.S. officials and villainous savages trying the patience of the peaceful, law-abiding Great Powers. Case in point: the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and Stacy Sullivans recent account of them in Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402milosevic.html). The actual sequence of events that caused those wars is very different from the reporting of the establishment media and, unfortunately, much of the progressive media. According to this story, the wars of the past decade were all started by the Serbs, who sought to destroy Yugoslavia and turn it into a mono-ethnic Greater Serbia. The West, well-meaning and indecisive as ever, stood by unwilling to intervene as the Serbs went on their rampage to carve out lands belonging to the other nations of Yugoslavia and drive out all non-Serbs. Not until the United States was finally moved to act to bring the Serbs to heel was peace and independence possible. And, thanks to the efforts of the United States, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia came into being to ensure that there would be no impunity for Serb leaders and their campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Today, tribunal judges supposedly toil away on behalf of the war crimes victims, painstakingly trying to balance judicial fairness against the need to ensure that such things never happen again. The problem is that not one part of this fairy tale is true. The wars in Yugoslavia started with the electoral triumph of anti-Communist nationalists in Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia in the countrys first multiparty elections in 1990. Slovenia and Croatia, with encouragement from abroad, particularly Germany and the United States, pushed for independence right away, in violation of the constitution of Yugoslavia. Serbias position, in accord both with the Yugoslav constitution and with democratic aspirations, was that the constituent nations of Yugoslavia could neither be forced to stay nor forced to leave Yugoslavia against their will. Deconstructing Yugoslav History The so-called international communitys unseemly and irresponsible recognition of independent Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 was not only flagrant interference in Yugoslav internal affairs, it violated innumerable international treaties such as the Helsinki Final Act, the Montevideo Convention and the United Nations Charter. Sabotage of peace plans, bad faith negotiations and a yearning to resort to force characterized U.S. policy in Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s. On May 30, 1992, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali issued a report commending the government of Yugoslavia for the withdrawal of its armed forces from Bosnia and criticizing Croatia for its refusal to withdraw its armed forces, the U.S. sought to suppress this report and to push the United Nations to impose sanctions against Yugoslavia, though not Croatia. Every proposal put forward by the E.U., like the Vance-Owen plan and the Owen-Stoltenberg plan was sabotaged by Washington as it egged on its proxies, Bosnias Muslims, to reject everything on the table in favor of the absurd and unrealistic option of a unitary state of the three ethnic groupssomething that the United States had insisted couldnt possibly work at the Yugoslav federal level. During this time, the United States was secretly arranging air drops of weapons to Bosnias Muslims, in violation of the United Nations arms embargo, as well as facilitating the flow of arms and mujahedin fanatics into Bosnia from Iran and Saudi Arabia. In addition, the United States, Great Britain and Germany were arming and training the Kosovo Liberation Army. The objective was to instigate terror and mayhem so as to provoke a reaction from the Yugoslav authorities that could then be designated a humanitarian crisis and used as a pretext for the armed attack that the Clinton administration had been seeking to launch for years. However, the Serbs were no fools and they refused to be provoked. Consequently, two further frauds were needed. First, there were the alleged killings at Racak. And then there were the bogus settlement negotiations at Rambuillet. On Jan. 15, 1999, following a military
[news] GERMAN SOLDIERS - FORCED PROSTITUTION IN KOSOVO
GERMAN SOLDIERS - FORCED PROSTITUTION IN KOSOVOAMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT Dateline 28th May 2004 INTRODUCTION: In this report from our German colleagues we see a situation of gross sexual exploitation of innocent women in Kosovo by German troops stationed there. The soldiers are part of the disastrous UN "peace keeping" force which has overseen some of the worst ethnic cleansing, murder and religious bigotry of the Yugoslav war (as in Bosnia and Croatia the main victims being Serbs). German troops were severely criticised recently for standing aside and watching as Albanian thugs torched Orthodox Churches and ethnically cleansed and murdered Serbs in Kosovo. What we report here is even worse than the (rightly criticised) activities of American soldiers in Iraq. For here we have the blatant sexual exploitation of innocent women, not the degradation of criminal suspects. And yet do we hear of this from the BBC? Their reporters do not even need to go to Kosovo - just down the road to Amnesty headquarters in London. And yet the Amnesty report the BBC chose to publicise is the one attacking the United States troops in Iraq not the one exposing German troops in Kosovo! PRISTINA: Amnesty International has published a report strongly condemning soldiers of the German Army in Kosovo. The report states that German soldiers in Kosovo and Macedonia have abducted women and under-age girls for sexual exploitation and to force into prostitution. Women's support organisations claim that despite their demands for the pursuit and punishment of the German soldiers the Berlin Ministry of Defence "always fobs them off". Even the former German UN Head in Kosovo Michael Steiner was unable to improve the lot of Kosovo's women during his period in office. Amnesty claims that since the entry of KFOR troops and the installation of the UN Administration Kosovo has been turned into a major market place for the trade in human beings. (1) Before the NATO attack on Yugoslavia there was no large scale prostitution in Kosovo, immediately after the UN occupation began there were established the first brothels using forced prostitution near the KFOR camps, the Amnesty expert Jan Digol confirmed. In Prizren, claims the Amnesty report, among the first clients for the abducted women were German soldiers in 1999. According to one television report German soldiers were regular visitors at child brothels. (2) During the term of office of the German UN Administrator Michael Steiner (February 2002 to July 2003) the position of the forcibly abducted Kosovo women did not improve. While the UN Administraion for January 2001 identified a total of 75 buildings in which women were forced into prostitution by the end of 2003 there were 200 such establishments. While Steiner divorced the Administration of Justice in Kosovo from Yugoslavia and therefore interfered greatly in the justice system he omitted apparently to implement a system of protection for victims and witnesses of forced prostitution. An effective attack on the trade in women is therefore hardly possible says Isabella Stock of the Women's Help Organisation Medica Mondiale During Steiner's period in office there were "no changes which would have contributed to an improvement in the situation" While the German Government justifies wars against Islamic States partly on the grounds of fighting for the rights of women, German soldiers are engaged in the sexual exploitation of abducted women without any effective attempts to counteract the scandal. Medica Mondiale has been demanding for years of the German Defence Ministry that they educate their troops and consistently follow up breaches of human rights. Stock claims this was all in vain "We were always fobbed off" The German Cabinet has just decided to extend the mandate for the German Armed Services in Kosovo. "The soldiers are performing an exceptional service" was the opinion of the German Minister for Defence. "and it is thanks to their professionalism and discretion that the fragile stability has survived at all" (4) 1) ,,So does it mean that we have the rights?" Protecting the human rights of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo; amnesty international 06.05.20042) ARD-Weltspiegel 17.12.20003) s. dazu Berliner Beute4) s. auch Konsequenz des Krieges und Leitbild http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/news-2004-05-28.html
[news] News, 27.05.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News 27.05.2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: EU Parliamentarians: An Undeserved Bad Rap Stereotypes have formed about members of the European Parliament: They're lazy; they just like to make speeches; they're ineffectual. But upon closer examination, they've been a pretty busy bunch lately. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1430_A_1217958_1_A,00.html -- Coalition suspends operations in Najaf The U.S.-led coalition has agreed to suspend offensive operations in Najaf after Shiite leaders struck a deal with radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to end the two-month uprising. Coalition spokesman Dan Senor told reporters in Baghdad that U.S. and coalition troops would remain in Najaf to until Iraqi security forces can resume their operations in the city and take control of strategic buildings from al-Sadr's militia. Iraqi leaders had urged the Americans to accept the agreement, although it does not require al-Sadr immediately to disband militia and turn himself in to authorities to face charges in the April 2003 assassination of a moderate cleric. Britain to raise troop levels in Iraq Britain's Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon has announced that it will send an extra 370 troops to Iraq to help combat the threat posed by insurgents. The deployment will boost British troop numbers to 8,900. Hoon said Britain was still considering whether further reinforcements would be needed in the months ahead. There had been speculation for weeks that Britain would send up to 3,000 reinforcements to plug the shortfall left by the retreat of Spanish, Honduran and Dominican forces. British cleric faces 11 terrorism charges in US A British cleric detained in London, faces 11 terrorism charges in the United States, including hostage taking. Abu Hamza al-Masri is also accused of helping Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group and the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Hamza, who is known for his sermons in a London mosque, was detained by London police acting on a US extradition request. US Attorney General John Ashcroft said there was an 11-count indictment against Hamza which includes charges of hostage taking and conspiracy to take hostages in connection with an attack in Yemen in December 1998 that resulted in the death of four hostages. Hamza, whose real name is Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, is also accused of providing material support to terrorists, specifically to al-Qaeda. Islamist faces extradition to Turkey German police have begun a major search operation for an Islamic militant leader who has gone missing after a German court overturned a ban on his extradition to Turkey. Muhammed Metin Kaplan disappeared after missing the last day of the hearing for apparent health reasons. Opposition politicians have criticised the police's failure to keep him under surveillance. Kaplan, also known as the Caliph of Cologne, faces treason charges in Turkey for his alleged part in a 1998 terrorist plot. His lawyers insist he could face torture, an unfair trial and a restriction of his religious freedoms should he be extradited. The case now goes to appeal before the German Federal Supreme Court. UN disaster experts to fly to storm-hit Carribean The death toll continues to rise in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, as bodies surface after Monday's floods. At least 860 bodies have been found, but it is feared that the toll could rise by many hundreds. Emergency workers are rushing to bury the dead in mass graves for fear of an outbreak of disease. Troops from the multinational force in Haiti are helping with relief work. Two teams of UN disaster experts will leave for Haiti and the Dominican Republic by Friday to assess and coordinate emergency relief efforts. The floods came after two weeks of persistent rain saturated the ground on the mountainous island of Hispaniola, which is divided between the two countries. Sudan agrees on peace deal Sudan has signed a deal with rebels in the south, aimed at ending one of Africa's longest-running civil wars. The power-sharing agreement was signed at a ceremony in Kenya, which hosted the peace talks. It applies only to the 21 year-old conflict between the Islamic government in the north and the mainly Christian south. Some 2 million people are thought to have died during the conflict, mainly due to starvation. The accord does not affect the ongoing fighting in the western Darfur area. The humanitarian crisis there is continuing to mount. It is estimated that around 30 thousand
[news] Holkeri Flees Kosovo, Just in Time
Holkeri Flees Kosovo, Just in TimeDate: Wednesday, May 26 @ 08:25:00 EDTTopic: Other Balkans ArticlesHarri Holkeri, the 4th UNMIK chief to serve over the past 5 years in Kosovo, resigned after only 10 months on the job yesterday. He cited health reasons as the reason for his departure. You can say that again.Like all of the foreign workers on the job now in Kosovo, Holkeri had the great misfortune to be serving at a time when long-simmering frustrations with international rule have boiled to the surface. Those joyous throngs of Albanians that received NATO in 1999 with open arms have been transformed into sullen, unpredictable mobs desiring only to see the international company leave. The March riots- and the stern international condemnation of them- have only irked even the non-extremists among the Albanians already fed up over the slow pace of the transition to self-rule, UNMIK financial corruption, as well as property, insurance and other disputes that cannot be settled so long as Kosovos legal status remains undetermined. Deadpanning on Holkeri, the Guardian added that it is understood that his health problems are connected with the stress involved in running the administration [in] Kosovo. Point taken. Holkeri was, simply put, the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. A former prime minister of the most taciturn, subdued nation in Europe (Finland), he lacked strong leadership or coordinative abilities. Unlike predecessor Michael Steiner- who would allegedly stop traffic when he wanted flowers sent across town to his Albanian girlfriend- he did not have the sort of flamboyant, commanding personality needed to keep the lid on things. But the writing had been on the wall long before. Sane and sensible people have predicted since even before the 1999 bombing that the final result of any foreign occupation would be not unlike what is happening now. Even in Steiners time, there were signs that Albanian militant extremists were resurfacing. The latter were taken by surprise, however, when following the Zvechan bridge bombing last spring, UNMIK declared the ANA a terrorist group. After years of having been coddled and appeased by the West, the spoiled Albanian extremists were offended. However, they mainly kept quiet and bided and their time. Yet however unlucky Holkeri was, whoever succeeds him will have it much worse. There is strong evidence to suggest that the same Albanian extremists who masterminded the March riots are planning for Round 2. This time, it will target not just the Serbs but the internationals as well. They will start with the expendable ones first, said one jaded UN official there last month. You know, the third-world contingents, the Africans and other people nobody cares about. They will try to avoid targeting the Americans, but if in the end its Americans who get in the way of their drive for independence, they will be attacked too. In the past, prime cheerleaders for the Albanian cause have been groups such as the ICG and IWPR. Their activities over the past few months are telling indicators of Kosovos changing atmosphere. The former released a long report denying that pan-Albanian separatism was really a threat to the region- suspiciously enough, less than a month before the March pogroms that saw non-Albanians ferociously targeted by rampaging mobs numbering total 51,000 people. (The so-called Albanian National Union Front however, disagreed strongly). They also released a report criticizing Holkeri for only pursuing half-measures (i.e., not the full independence they and the Albanians had been calling for). As for the IWPR, they recently published a laudatory report from Drenica, on the resurrection of the Kosovo Liberation Army amidst an upsurge of commemorative ceremonies and constructions meant to cast the slain freedom fighters of yesteryear as national heroes- and soon thereafter published another article denying the validity of the phenomenon. It seems that the powers-that-be are helping to pave the way for the next stage of the glorious Albanian liberation movement. After all, they have seen what the alternative looks like. The point is that if bad news interests you- and it certainly enthralls the world media- then Kosovo is going to be an interesting place over the next few months. One seasoned observer told me that if not this year, there will definitely be fighting to secure independence if that goal hasnt been reached by 2005. Of course, certain external events could have an effect: if Albanian-American lobbyists help elect John Kerry, his government will do its best to guarantee Kosovo independence politically. There may not be a need to fight. After all, consider the words of the arrogant Richard Holbrooke, tipped to be Kerrys secretary of state. According to the Guardian, this former troubleshooter of the Balkans claimed that Holkeri did not understand the situation in Kosovo. For
[news] News, 26.05.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News 26. 05. 2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Breakthrough on German Immigration Law After years of acrimonious talks and two failed attempts to push through a controversial immigration law, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder managed to secure a deal with the opposition conservatives. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_1217089_1_A,00.html -- Blair denies rift with US over Iraqi sovereignty British Prime Minister Tony Blair says Washington and London are in accord about how much control a new Iraqi government will have after the coalition hands over power on June 30th. On Tuesday, the prime minister appeared to say that the Iraqi government would be able to veto decisions made by an international military force. US Secretary of State Colin Powell however said the United States would maintain control over its troops. Later though during his weekly question time in the House of Commons Blair stated that coalition troops would remain under direct coalition control. Dominican and Haitian floods kill at least 500 Torrential flooding in the Dominican Republic and Haiti has cost the lives of more than 500 people. The flooding followed days of torrential rain on the island of Hispaniola, shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Government officials estimate that up to 13 thousand people have been rendered homeless. Fears are also growing that the countries will suffer rampant disease in the wake of the flooding as the local rescue forces are overwhelmed by the enormity of the disaster. US and Canadian forces who are stationed in Haiti as part of an international peacekeeping force are assisting emergency operations. Karachi car bombs injure 17 At least one person has been killed and seventeen injured in two car bomb explosions in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. The cars exploded outside the Pakistani-American Cultural Centre according to the Reuters news agency. The explosions, less than 15 minutes apart, took place about 100 metres from the residence of the U.S. consul and about 200 metres from the U.S. consulate, which was the scene of a car bomb attack by Islamic militants in 2002. Pakistan's largest city has been the scene of frequent acts of Islamic militant violence since President Pervez Musharraf publicly announced his support of the U.S.-led war on terrorism in 2001. AI slams US over human rights abuses Amnesty International has criticised several countries over their human rights records in its annual report. But the report, which was released by the London-based organisation this Wednesday, targets the United States in particular. It says the US-led war on terror was being waged using indiscriminate and disproportionate means. Among other things, it points to the hundreds of foreign nationals who remain in indefinite US custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without having been charged with a crime. It also details alleged killings of civilians by coalition troops in Iraq, as well as allegations of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers. The report also condemned terrorist attacks conducted by groups such as al Qaeda. Gelsenkirchen hosts Europe's club final In a few hours time, Europe's Champions League soccer final between Porto and Monaco will be played at Gelsenkirchen in Germany, due to be watched by dignatories like Monaco's Prince Rainier. Also due to attend will be Portuguese premier Jose Manuel Durao Barroso who has put off a state trip to Mexico. Porto coach Jose Mourinho has urged his players to keep their cool. Monaco's coach Didier Deschamps said his team's fortunes rested on its striker Fernando Morientes. Giant TV screens have been set up for crowds in Lisbon and Monaco. The match will also be broadcast to 200 million viewers worldwide. Putin decries critics, promises prosperity President Vladimir Putin has promised a stable democracy and doubled incomes within a decade to millions of Russians still waiting for post-Soviet reforms. In a national address, two months after his re-election, Putin also pledged improved property rights, including mortgages to put a third of Russians into their own homes by 2010. On Chechnya, Putin said Russian forces would not halt in pursuing rebels. He also denounced human rights groups critical of his record, accusing them of serving dubious interests. Amnesty International in its report says Russian forces in Chechnya violate human rights with impunity. Russian authorities say latest clashes have left dead
[news] Depleted Consciousness (by Chris Busby)
http://traprockpeace.org/busby_depleted_uranium.pdf
[news] Setback for Kosovo
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4932553-103558,00.html Setback for Kosovo as UN official resigns Ian Traynor in ZagrebWednesday May 26, 2004 The GuardianThe prospect of a settlement between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo was set back yesterday when the UN administrator of province resigned after only 10 months in the post. Harri Holkeri, 67, a former prime minister of Finland, who has been criticised for his lacklustre performance in the job, told journalists in Helsinki that he was standing down for health reasons. He is the fourth man to leave the job in five years after failing to defuse ethnic tension in Kosovo. Mr Holkeri, who has led the civil administration of the UN protectorate in the Balkans since July, was recently admitted to hospital in Strasbourg suffering from fatigue. He then went home to Finland for further medical consultations. It is understood that his health problems are connected with the stress involved in running the administration Kosovo. In March there were ethnic riots which left 19 dead, hundreds of homes burned and ransacked, and more than 4,000 Serbs displaced, when the majority Albanian population turned on the Serbian minority. It was the worst violence in Kosovo since Nato expelled the Serbian military in an air war in the summer of 1999. Since then Kosovo has been in a state of political suspended animation, the UN and the EU reluctant to move quickly towards resolving its status. Mr Holkeri was criticised by all sides for his handling of the March crisis, and shortly afterwards a respected thinktank issued a lengthy study of the situation in Kosovo strongly criticising his policies and urging that his post should be scrapped and the UN mission overhauled. Mr Holkeri did not help matters by saying publicly that only a couple of Serbian churches had been damaged by the violence. In reality 30 Serbian Orthodox churches and other properties were attacked by rioting Albanians and hundreds of Serbian homes in the province were destroyed. In resigning yesterday, he took a swipe at his political masters, saying "someone has to become the scapegoat". The international military and civilian missions in Kosovo are struggling to stabilise the province, five years after they took over. It is polarised between the majority Albanians demanding full independence and Serbia seeking an ethnic partition. Richard Holbrooke, the former US troubleshooter in the Balkans, said that Mr Holkeri did not understand the situation in Kosovo. But the US state department said that Mr Holkeri had presided over "real progress in Kosovo's effort to achieve a multi-ethnic democracy" during his tenure. The Albanians resented Mr Holkeri for his perceived laxity in dealing with Serbian projects for partition, and the Serbian government in Belgrade accused him of failing to protect the Serbian minority from the assaults of Albanian thugs. In its report last month the International Crisis Group, in Brussels, said Mr Holkeri was pushing "half-policies" in Kosovo. Mr Holkeri said the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, had accepted his resignation. It was not clear last night who would succeed him. Mr Holkeri said he would return to Kosovo to help smooth the way for a successor. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
[news] Harri Holkeri: GOOD MAN IN WRONG TIME AND PLACE
EDITORIALS COLUMNS back to top GOOD MAN IN WRONG TIME AND PLACE 1. The history of Harri Holkeri in Kosovo started on the right path but did not end on the right one. The day when he came to Kosovo, he had inherited the animosity created towards the UN. Hakkerup and Steiner were before him; the first one was known for his passiveness and closing towards the Albanians; the second was known for his hyper-activity and an arrogant disregard about whatever Kosovars said. Both of them, each in his way, were king-like administrators that treated Kosovo as a feudal service for a favour done in the past. Holkeri did not have any idea where he was coming when he stepped on Prishtina. Following the EU Summit in Thesaloniki, he understood he had to initiate talks between Prishtina and Belgrade. Based on his Nordic discipline, he had taken this as an immediate issue. He came to Prishtina, he said that dialogue has to start, and then he went to Belgrade 24 hours later to say the same thing. He had not thought and analyzed how this dialogue should develop, in what context, where, with whom and how. I met him on the first day and I expressed my skepticism about his operational platform. He told me that this dialogue matter should start soon. The truth is that he started and ended his mandate without a genuine dialogue. 2. In fact, for a long time, there was no genuine dialogue between Prishtina and Belgrade, but between different neighborhoods of Prishtina as well. The building where UNMiK is located is about 500 meters far from the one of Kosovo Government, but there are a very few who could say that a real dialogue between these two buildings has existed. The truth is that Holkeri tried to melt the ice, which was getting thicker since Kouchner left. As a man, who respected and respects the collocutors, after his efforts for dialogue failed, he tried to understand what Kosovars want. In the beginning, the list with Kosovars wishes was long: from privatization to transfer of competencies. Starting from here, Holkeri started his mandate wishing to create a new relationship with Kosovars and ended his mandate without reaching it. 3. On the first days of his mission in Kosovo, Richard Holbrooke had said about Bernard Kouchner that this is the needed man on the right time and right place. These words came to be true. For Holkeri, it may be said he was the good man on the on the wrong time and wrong place. The Finnish politician came to Kosovo at a time when UNMiK was producing nothing else but bad-governance, and except demagogy and empty words he did not have other partner in the Kosovo political stage. For making his life even more complicated, the March events took place and he neither had knowledge nor responsibility for them. He would have stayed more in Kosovo, and I have had this impression every time I met him (although very rarely), because his political credo was to not give up before problems. Regardless how strong his credo was, problems were even bigger. Holkeri could not face physically and mentally with Kosovo. 4. Holkeris going speaks in the same way about us and him. While he is leaving his position due to health conditions (by opening elegantly the possibility for his replacement to majority of states that were dissatisfied with his clumsiness), we are waiting who will be the next administrator. We wait because it will depend on the character of one person how Kosovo would be governed, how we will face with the list of problems stating from privatization to next final status. One may say: There are institutions and system and why does this have to depend on one person? Unfortunately, as it was proven in the past five years, a person appointed by Kofi Annan determines the basic rhythm. And the waiting for the name of the new sultan starts now. (By Veton Surroi, Koha Ditore) PRISHTINA MEDIA HIGHLIGHTSOSCE Mission in KosovoOffice of Press and Public Information26 May 2004
[news] UN war crimes tribunal indicts former Croatian general
UN war crimes tribunal indicts former Croatian general 25 May 2004 A retired Croatian general has been charged by the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia with responsibility for his alleged role in a 1993 operation against a Serbian enclave. The UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) made the indictment public today after it was issued last week. Among the charges of murder and cruel and inhumane treatment of civilians and captured soldiers during a two-day attack on the Medak Pocket, were counts of tying bodies to a car and dragging them along village roadsides, and burning a Serbian woman alive while soldiers mocked her. According to the indictment, Mirko Norac, "acting individually and/or in concert with others...planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of persecutions of Serb civilians of the Medak Pocket on racial, political or religious ground." At the time of the attack - which expelled 400 Serb civilians from the region - Mr. Norac was a commander of the Ninth Guards Motorized Brigade and led a group formed for the purpose of conducting the operation, The Hague-based court said. The indictment says that as a result of the Croatian military operation, "the Medak Pocket became uninhabitable thereby depriving the Serbian population of their homes and livelihoods." Two other generals have already been charged with responsibility for the same operation - Rahim Ademi, who is free on bail pending his trial, and Janko Bobetko, who has died. UN war crimes tribunal indicts former Croatian general http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=10865Cr=ictyCr1=
[news] News, 21.05.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News May 21st 2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: EU Backs Russian Entry to WTO In the first bilateral summit since the EU enlargement, Russia garnered European Union support for Moscow's bid to join the World Trade Organization. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_1209237_1_A,00.html -- Enjoy our World News newsletter? Why not also subscribe to Daily Bulletin, DW-WORLD's latest daily digest of the day's top German and European stories, delivered to you around 18:30 UTC. To find out more and sign up, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english/newsletter -- New photos, stories detail more prisoner abuse New photos and stories of Iraqi prisoner abuse have emerged in American news reports. In a Friday edition and on the Internet, the Washington Post published detailed accounts from inmates who were severely mistreated by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The Washington post also published graphic, new photos documenting the abuse. The newspaper said the latest abuse reports came from evidence being assembled from investigations which could lead to possible criminal charges against several U.S. soldiers. Meanwhile, the U.S. military has released hundreds of Iraqi prisoners from Abu Ghraib. On Friday, thirteen buses carrying the inmates left the facility. Israel begins partial troop pullout Israel has begun a partial troop pullout from the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian witnesses said tanks began moving out of two Rafah neighbourhoods early on Friday but that soldiers were still in charge of the camp. Israeli security sources said troops were redeploying but that a smaller contingent of troops would remain in the camp for an undefined period of time. Over 40 Palestinians have been killed in the four-day operation in the camp. Israel has come under severe international criticism for the Gaza operation, which Israeli officials say is necessary to destroy arms-smuggling tunnels and halt militant activity. Commonwealth ministers discuss Pakistan's readmission Foreign ministers from nine Commonwealth countries are meeting in London to debate whether or not Pakistan should be re-admitted to the 53-nation club. Over the next two days they will discuss what progress the Pakistani government has made towards re-establishing democratic principles which are necessary for Commonwealth membership. The Commonwealth suspended Pakistan after Pervez Musharraf toppled the elected President Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup in 1999. The Commonwealth includes Britain and former British colonies and dominions. Four arrested in Berg killing Four people have been detained in Iraq for the killing of the American civilian contractor Nicholas Berg, who was decapitated on a videotape. US and Iraqi officials said the four were arrested a week ago, north of Baghdad. An Iraqi security official said that the group had been led by a nephew of Saddam Hussein, and that they were members of Saddam's Fedayeen paramilitary organisation. Berg had been missing since April 10. His body was found about a month later on a road near Baghdad. Spanish troops depart Iraq The last Spanish troops have pulled out of Iraq. A large convoy of with troops and equipment was headed for Kuwait. The withdrawal of Spanish troops was a campaign pledge fulfilled by Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who came to power in a surprise election victory in March. Meanwhile, Italy's parliament has rejected a motion to withdraw the country's almost 3,000 troops from Iraq. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi reaffirmed Italy's military commitment to Iraq, saying its forces would stay put until a stable democracy had taken hold. EU backs Russian WTO membership The European Union and Russia have signed a deal that gives Moscow EU backing for its bid to join the World Trade Organisation. Russian Economics Minister German Gref and European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy signed the trade protocol at a summit on Friday. The agreement ends six years of talks over Russia's quest to become a member of the WTO which sets global trade rules. The EU-Russia summit was the first since the EU added 10 new members, including eight which were in Moscow's sphere of influence until the fall of communism. Bomb explodes at Bangladeshi shrine Police and witnesses say a bomb has exploded at a Muslim
[news] OSCE MISSION IN KOSOVO
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe MISSION IN KOSOVO PPI MORNING BRIEFING FOR OMIK HEAD OF MISSION PRISTINA MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS 25 May 04 Thacis idea discussed Thacis idea for using the Ohrid agreement in Kosovo as well received great media coverage. Koha Ditore ran a front page article quoting EU officials, including Solana about this idea. Solana appeared in Zri as well. He said, Translation of an agreement, which was necessary for a period of time in Macedonia, would not be good for every region. I do not think it would be a good approach, but some elements and parts of it may be useful for other agreements. On the other hand, a front page article in Bota Sot entitled Hashim Thaci, the PM of Kosovo Serbs read, How is it possible to ask same rights for the Kosovo Serbs, who comprise only 9% of Kosovo population, while the Albanians comprise 27% of Macedonian population. On the other hand, regarding this issue, Thaci said in an interview with Zeri, My idea for a quicker and fairer solution for solving the issue of minorities is a priority of Kosovo Government. Time for changing things has come. Kosovo cannot get independence by selecting the rights of citizens. PDK vice-chairman Hajredin Kuci said that this is PDKs offer. He supported their idea by saying, Ohrids modified agreement would stop a possible division of Kosovo, same as the Ohrid agreements does. Serb Assembly Presidency member Ivanovic supported Thacis idea and said, This idea is a positive movement and a new principle in solving the Kosovo crisis. Zeri quoted again LDK and AAK officials who refused this idea once more. (Dailies, primary sources Koha Ditore Zeri) OSCE: March riots show defects in UNMiK-KFOR-KPS Zri published on its front page an exclusive article about the OSCE report on human rights that will be made public today. The article includes some excerpts of the report and some comments. It reads that the OSCE has given priority to the splits that reigned during the March riots in the security triangle UNMiK-KFOR-KPS. Also, it reads that the report says that these riots have complicated even more communities approach towards justice and Kosovo authorities have failed to protect property rights of minorities. This article carries out parts of the report from the fields on the security, human rights, March riots, and property rights. (Zri) MPs will receive report with amendments on Constitutional Framework The report with all proposed amendments for Constittional Framework will be handed out to MPs of Kosovo Assembly in the next session, on Thursday. The presidency of the Kosovo Assembly is against the installation of practices that Laws should be changed by amendments, before their execution. So, no matter of proposals for change, there is a decision that there will be no change of them said Konjufca. (Koha Ditore, Kosova Sot) Fieschi: October elections will be managed by locals Epoka e Re carries an interview with the OSCE chief, Pascal Fieschi, where he said Main difference is that elections will be organized in co-ordination with CeC. For the first time, elections will be organized by local representatives. (Epoka e Re) Kosovo with strategy against corruption (all dailies) All dailies report on the conference of Kosovo Government in co-operation with the European Agency for Reconstruction, where Kosovo Government made public the strategy for fighting corruption. Jetmir Balaj, a civil society representative, said that the issue of corruption cannot be discussed at the time when there is corruption within the Kosovo institutions themselves. We have here a strategy how to fight corruption. This strategy must be implemented. We had here a minister who two or three days ago was mentioned in the media as a person who hired in his ministry all his family members. The same minister should be responsible to implement the strategy. But this is just a farce; this is ridiculous and the civil society will not take part in this farce, said Balaj talking about Ali Sadriu, who earlier left the conference hall. Four seminars crush corruption At the end of the mandate, the cabinet of PM Rexhepi decided to surprise all with a strategy against corruption in public administration and in governmental offices. It is expected that in four seminars corruption is beaten. Corruption has already put its rrots into different ministries and it Is not easy to fight it. For example, is a LDK or AAK minister is corrupted, our PM is powerless to dismiss him due to the way of functioning of the Government. But, he can incite more transparency towards the media. The achievement of the governmental strategy for fighting corruption will face great obstacle, precisely by UNMIK, which although promise zero tolearance, it violates itself this principle. (Kosova Sot, editorial) From Helsinki to Prishtina What will Harri Holkeri say in the press conference,
[news] MQ Review of Yugoslavia Unraveled
Copyright © 2004 Mediterranean Affairs, Inc. All rights reserved. Mediterranean Quarterly 15.1 (2004) 123-127 Raju G. C. Thomas, Editor: Yugoslavia Unraveled: Sovereignty, Self-Determination, Intervention. New York: Lexington Books, 2003. 400 pages. ISBN 0-7391-0517-5. $85.00. http://www.lexingtonbooks.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Searchdb=^DB /CATALOG.dbeqSKUdata=0739105175 Yugoslavia Unraveled is a welcome and important work that reviews the international community's policies toward Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It is welcome because dispassionate analysis of these policies has been superseded in the West by triumphalism, and especially, in editor Raju G. C. Thomas's words, the triumph of a new moral liberalism, which emphasized global humanitarianism over the old, cynical, state-centered realism. This book is important both for what it teaches us about the conduct of foreign policy during the 1990s and for what it tells us about policy in the twenty-first century, because the authors understand that a fundamental transformation in the conduct of international relations has taken place. On balance, the authors believe that this new system will lead to more violence and ethnic strife. [End Page 123] As is often the case with edited collections, the essays in this volume vary widely in language and approach. Credit goes to Thomas, Allis Chalmers Professor of International Affairs at Marquette University, for setting the overall tone as well as the direction for the volume in his prologue and introductory chapter. The contest between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, led by the United States, and the Serbs, led symbolically at least by Slobodan Milosevic, was often conceived as a struggle between good and evil, between enlightened Westerners committed to protecting human rights and a man portrayed as a hateful bigot who practiced ethnic cleansing against (especially Muslim) populations in Bosnia and Kosovo. In fact, as Thomas and nearly all of the other contributors to this volume show, both sidesboth the West and its allies in Yugoslavia (including the Croats, the Bosnian Muslims, and the Kosovar Albanians), and Milosevic and the Serbsare to blame for the horrific violence and massive population shifts that took place in the ten years following the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Several of the authors go one step further. The fundamental problem was not what the Serbs did, Thomas writes, but what the Western powers did: namely, the violation of Yugoslavia's territorial sovereignty, the rush to advance the principle of self-determination, and the reckless use of massive force in violation of the UN Charter on humanitarian grounds. Similarly, Gordon Bardos concludes that the international community is to blame for much that is wrong in southeastern Europe. The West's perfect failure (a phrase coined by Michael Mandelbaum) derived from a fundamental misdiagnosis of the prerequisites for stabilizing the region, and he likens international (and especially American) policy in the region to using sledgehammers to kill mosquitoes. Other essays in the volume include P. H. Liotta's study of the religious components that contributed to Yugoslavia's disintegration. Milica Bookman's economic analysis of the situation in Yugoslavia is both refreshing and original in providing a unifying approach to understanding the entire region. Edward Herman notes the systemic bias of the media's coverage and charges that the media itself played a crucial propaganda role. Meanwhile, Satish Nambiar's experiences as the first military commander of the United Nations Protection Force deployed in Yugoslavia may help to assess operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maya Chadda's chapter on intervention in ethnic civil wars and exit strategies is also relevant for Iraq, where there is no clear exit plan, and where the risks of an ethnic civil war persist. The most important chapters are those that transcend a narrow focus on southeastern Europe in the 1990s and include important lessons for current policies throughout the world. For example, borrowing a phrase from Geoffrey Blainey, Alan Kuperman argues that the West's policies are the main source of optimistic miscalculation in the post-Cold War world, creating the expectation that the international community will aid ethnic minorities in secessionist struggles. Kuperman concludes that a declared [End Page 124] policy of nonintervention could discourage uprisings by weak subordinate groups and therebycounterintuitivelyreduce ethnic cleansing and genocide. On the other hand, Kuperman warns, a declaratory policy of routine intervention such as the Clinton Doctrine is likely to be counterproductive, inadvertently spurring the
[news] OSCE Mission to issue report on human rights challenges
OSCE Mission to issue report on human rights challenges PRISTINA, 24 May 2004 Tomorrow the OSCE Mission in Kosovo will be issuing a report that gives an overview of human rights concerns emerging during and after the violence of March 17-19, including the response of authorities. The report address the main challenges in the areas of security, access to justice, property rights, and access to services. Carsten Weber, Director of the OSCE Missions Department of Human Rights and Rule of Rule, will present the report. The conclusion of the report in clear: A number of human rights challenges have crystallized following the riots (The report) can be seen as an early warning indicator. The responsible authorities need to address the identified problems sooner rather than later in order to ensure that ethnic violence does not pay. Copies of the report will be available at the press conference, and after the launch on the OSCE Mission in Kosovo website: www.osce.org/kosovo. Interested media can contact the Press Office for an embargoed copy of the report. Representatives of the media are invited to attend a briefing on Tuesday, May 25 at OSCE Mission Headquarters (3rd Floor conference room) at 13:00 hrs. PA OMIK HR 13/04 ---Sven LindholmMission SpokespersonOSCE Mission in KosovoTel: +381 38 500 162 ext.260Mob: +377 44 500 254
[news] What have you done?
http://www.thehindu.com/2004/05/23/stories/2004052312401000.htm The Hindu International U.S. film wins top prize at Cannes fete CANNES (FRANCE), MAY 22. U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore's ``Fahrenheit 9/11,'' a scathing indictment of White House actions after the September 11 attacks, won the top prize today at the Cannes Film Festival. ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' was the first documentary to win Cannes' prestigious Palme d'Or since Jacques Cousteau's ``The Silent World'' in 1956. ``What have you done? I'm completely overwhelmed by this. Merci,'' Moore said after getting a standing ovation from the Cannes crowd. ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' took the prize amid sharply-divided Cannes moviegoers, who found a solid crop of good movies among the 19 entries in the festival's main competition but no great ones that rose to frontrunner status. While the film was well-received by Cannes audiences, many critics felt it was inferior to Moore's Academy Award-winning documentary ``Bowling for Columbine,'' which earned him a special prize at Cannes in 2002. Some critics had speculated that if ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' won the top prize, it would be more for the film's politics than its cinematic value. With Moore's customary blend of humour and horror, the film accuses the Bush camp of stealing the 2000 election, overlooking terrorism warnings before September 11, 2001 and fanning fears of more attacks to secure Americans' support for the Iraq war. Moore appears on-screen far less in ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' than in ``Bowling for Columbine'' or his other documentaries. The film relies largely on interviews, footage of U.S. soldiers and war victims in Iraq, and archival footage of Bush. The best-actress award went to Maggie Cheung for her role in ``Clean'' as a junkie trying to straighten out her life and regain custody of her young son after her rock-star boyfriend dies of a drug overdose. Fourteen-year-old Yagira Yuuya was named best actor for the Japanese film ``Nobody Knows,'' in which he plays the eldest of four siblings raised in isolation, who must take charge of the family when their mother leaves. The directing and writing prizes went to French filmmakers. Tony Gatlif won the directing honour for ``Exiles,'' his road-trip about a couple on a sensual journey from France to Algeria. Agnes Jaoui and her partner, Jean-Pierre Bacri, won the screenplay award for ``Look at Me,'' their study in self-image centring on an overweight young woman who feels neglected by loved ones. Jaoui and Bacri also co-star. Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's ``Tropical Malady'' widely regarded by Cannes audiences as a snoozer for its elongated scenes of a man wandering in a jungle alone with no dialogue won the festival's third-place jury prize. Another jury prize went to Irma P. Hall for her role as an elderly Southern woman who foils a casino robbery in the Coen brothers' crime comedy ``The Ladykillers,'' starring Tom Hanks as the heist's ringleader. Keren Yedaya's ``Or,'' about a Tel Aviv prostitute in failing health and her teenage daughter, won the Golden Camera award for best film by a first-time director. The U.S.-born Yedaya, who grew up in Israel, conducts lectures about the problems of prostitution for government officials and mental-health professionals. AP
[news] Who is Ahmed Chalabi?
Who is Ahmed Chalabi? by Michel Chossudovsky www.globalresearch.ca 21 May 2004 The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO405D.html On the 19th of May, US forces raided the Baghdad home of the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) Ahmed Chalabi. The media in chorus, without further investigation, described the raid as an effort to silence Chalabi's condemnation of the US-led occupation: "My house was attacked... We avoided by a hair's breadth a clash with my guards. I am America's best friend in Iraq. If the CPA finds it necessary to direct an armed attack against my home, you can see the state of relations between the CPA and the Iraqi people." ( Press Conference in Baghdad quoted in the Independent, 20 May 2004) The reports pointed to "a changed relationship" between Chalabi and the Coalition. "It's a stunning reversal!." Washington has decided "to drop its backing for Mr Chalabi and to distance itself from him". Chalabi is said to have been plotting against the US by putting together "a sectarian Shiite faction" to apparently destabilize to the "UN sponsored" transitional government which is slated to take office on July 1st. According to press reports, Chalabi was the target of a US government investigation "into whether he betrayed American intelligence secrets to foreign governments, including Iran." He is also accused of hiding the records of the oil for food program and for having "exaggerated" the threat of weapons of mass destruction, in intelligence transmitted to the Coalition in the months leading up to the war. In other words, he is said to have tricked US intelligence into believing there were WMDs. Where he got this intelligence is not mentioned. Chalabi returned to Kurdish held Northern Iraq in February 2003 after 45 years in exile and the INC did not have an active network inside Iraq, which would have enabled it to gather intelligence on WMDs Puppet without Strings From one day to the next, the puppet is presented as "pulling the strings" and maneuvering behind the scenes against the US led coalition. The official explanation, as conveyed by the press reports, simply does not make sense. Up until the 18th of May, Chalabi was still on the Pentagon's payroll receiving a modest monthly allowance of $355,000 (more than 4 million dollars a year). His job was described as "intelligence gathering." Two days later his house is raided. According to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, cutting his pocket money was part of the "natural evolution" towards democracy in Iraq: "That was a decision that was made in light of the process of transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi people... There has been some very valuable intelligence that's been gathered through that process that's been very important for our forces, but we will seek to obtain that in the future through normal intelligence channels." (quoted in the Financial Times, 21 May 2004) On the 18th of May, they cut his money and the following day they raid his office? A puppet does not turn against his master, particularly when key members of his staff, including his main advisers and spokesmen, are US appointees who report directly back to the Pentagon. Who is Ahmed Chalabi? Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Council are a creation of the CIA. Chalabi is an Iraqi emigr, handpicked by US intelligence. He left Iraq and moved to the US with his family at age 13. He holds a US passport. Chalabi returned to Iraq barely one month before the war. He had not set foot in Iraq since his childhood. On April 6 2003, US troops escorted him to Nasiriya, where he established, with the support of the US military, the so-called Free Iraqi Forces, a paramilitary army of some 600 fighters. Since his return to Iraq, he has been a leading figure of the US sponsored Iraqi Governing Council. Chalabi may have some degree of controlled "independence", but he remains a US sponsored "intelligence asset". Key members of his staff, report to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The press reports seem to suggest a "blowback". Our trusted ally has gone against us.": Washington's longtime ally who was once favored by the Pentagon brass to be Iraq's post-war leader. The Iraqi National Police and American military police hauled away computers, documents, and a "valuable Koran" from his office, according to Chalabi, a senior member of Iraq's Governing Council and head of the Iraqi National Congress. In an angry letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Director George Tenet, the Boston law firm that represents Chalabi, Markham Read, said a large contingent of police and armed plainclothes Americans ransacked the INC's
[news] Noam Chomsky talks about American imperialism and British me too-ism.
Noam Chomsky If George Bush were to be judged by the standards of the Nuremberg Tribunals, he'd be hanged. So too, mind you, would every single American President since the end of the second world war, including Jimmy Carter. The suggestion comes from perhaps the most feted liberal intellectual in the world - the American linguist Noam Chomsky. His latest attack on the way his country behaves in the world is called Hegemony or Survival, America's Quest for Global Dominance. Jeremy Paxman met him at the British Museum, where they talked in the Assyrian Galleries. He asked him whether he was suggesting there was nothing new in the so-called Bush Doctrine. Watch the interview NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, it depends. It is recognised to be revolutionary. Henry Kissinger for example described it as a revolutionary new doctrine which tears to shreds the Westphalian System, the 17th century system of International Order and of course the UN Charter. But nevertheless, and has been very widely criticised within the foreign policy elite. But on narrow ground the doctrine is not really new, it's extreme. JEREMY PAXMAN: What was the United States supposed to do after 9/11? It had been the victim of a grotesque, intentional attack, what was it supposed to do but try...? NOAM CHOMSKY: Why pick 9/11? Why not pick 1993. Actually the fact that the terrorist act succeeded in September 11th did not alter the risk analysis. In 1993, similar groups, US trained Jihadi's came very close to blowing up the World Trade Center, with better planning, they probably would have killed tens of thousands of people. Since then it was known that this is very likely. In fact right through the 90's there was technical literature predicting it, and we know what to do. What you do is police work. Police work is the way to stop terrorist acts and it succeeded. JEREMY PAXMAN: But you are suggesting the United States in that sense is the author of Its own Nemesis. NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, first of all this is not my opinion. It's the opinion of just about every specialist on terrorism. Take a look, say at Jason Burke's recent book on Al-Qaeda which is just the best book there is. What he points out is, he runs through the record of how each act of violence has increased recruitment financing mobilisation, what he says is, I'm quoting him, that each act of violence is a small victory for Bin Laden. JEREMY PAXMAN: But why do you imagine George Bush behaves like this? NOAM CHOMSKY: Because I don't think they care that much about terror, in fact we know that. Take say the invasion of Iraq, it was predicted by just about every specialist by intelligence agencies that the invasion of Iraq would increase the threat of Al-Qaeda style terror which is exactly what happened. The point is that... JEREMY PAXMAN: Then why would he do it? NOAM CHOMSKY: Because invading Iraq has value in Itself, I mean establishing... JEREMY PAXMAN: Well what value? NOAM CHOMSKY: What value? Establishing the first secure military base in a dependant client state at the heart of the energy producing region of the world. JEREMY PAXMAN: Don't you even think that the people of Iraq are better off having got rid of a dictator? NOAM CHOMSKY: That, they got rid of two brutal regimes, one that we are supposed to talk about, the other one we are not suppose to talk about. The two brutal regimes were Saddam Hussein's and the US-British sanctions, which were devastating society, had killed hundreds of thousands of people, were forcing people to be reliant on Saddam Hussein. Now the sanctions could obviously have been turned to weapons rather than destroying society without an invasion. If that had happened it is not at all impossible that the people of Iraq would have sent Saddam Hussein the same way to the same fate as other monsters supported by the US and Britain. Ceausescu, Suharto, Duvalier, Marcos, there's a long list of them. In fact the people, the westerners who know Iraq best were predicting this all along. JEREMY PAXMAN: You seem to be suggesting or implying, perhaps I'm being unfair to you, but you seem to be implying there is some equivalence between democratically elected heads of state like George Bush or Prime Ministers like Tony Blair and regimes in places like Iraq. NOAM CHOMSKY: The term moral equivalence is an interesting one, it was invented I think by Jeane Kirkpatrick as a method of trying to prevent criticism of foreign policy and state decisions. It has a meaning less notion, there is no moral equivalence what so ever. JEREMY PAXMAN: Is it a good thing if it is preferable for an individual to live in a liberal democracy, is there benefit to be gained by spreading the values of that democracy however you can? NOAM CHOMSKY: That reminds me of the question that Ghandi was once asked about western civilisation, what did he think of it. He said yeah, it would be a good idea. In fact it would be a
[news] Lesson learned from Balkan visitors
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=68796format=text Metro West Daily News Lodge: Lesson learned from Balkan visitorsBy Richard Lodge / Letter from the EditorFriday, May 21, 2004 The police scanner was the tip-off to journalist Arben Ratkoceri that he wasn't in Skopje anymore. Ratkoceri, 32, is an editor for the Albanian-language daily "Koha Ditore" (Daily Times), published from the Balkan state of Kosovo, with an edition in neighboring Macedonia. He and half a dozen fellow journalists from the Balkans are in the U.S. for three weeks, courtesy of the U.S. State Department, under a program giving them an inside look at how the American media works. Ratkoceri and Naser Selmani, 30, a reporter for "Vest," a Macedonian-language daily in the capital of Skopje, spent the week at The MetroWest Daily News and visited local sites. The two journalists and their interpreters had been in our newsroom for only a few minutes when Arben looked quizzically at the police scanner, squawking away on our news desk. He asked his interpreter if the scanner was what he thought it was. Yes, she said, it's a radio that broadcasts police and fire calls. "Is it legal for you to listen to that?" he asked. "Do the police know you have it?" Yes, we told him. No permission required. Perfectly legal. Although Macedonia is a democracy with a president and parliament, the police retain much of the secrecy from the old days of Soviet influence. Even today, eavesdropping on the cops back home is illegal, Ratkoceri explained. While the Pentagon wrestles with which damning photos from Abu Ghraib to release next, and schedules courts martials for soldiers, the U.S. grapples with this awkward exhibition of showing the world how democracy works. Being around two men from a country few Americans can find on a map is sobering. It reminded me of how little I know about some parts of the world -- and how seldom events here in the land of plenty make us think about a place such as Macedonia. While we cruise in SUVs, fretting over $2-per-gallon gasoline, Macedonians pump gas at $4 a gallon into their compact and fuel-stingy cars. Selmani drives to work in Skopje in a Yugo, for example. Here in the U.S., we wring our hands over the horror wreaked upon us on 9/11. The Macedonians and their ethnic Albanian neighbors speak openly about the five conflicts -- and thousands of civilian deaths -- in their region in recent years; the mandatory military service they accept as a fact of life; and the evil wrought by Bosnian Serbs in a massacre of more than 7,000 of their Muslim neighbors in Srebrenica during the war in Bosnia. Only military action by the U.S.-led NATO force brought a troubled peace; only the continuing presence of NATO troops keeps some ethnic factions in that region from waging war again. What do our guests from Macedonia think of America's war in Iraq, an effort that includes a few dozen Macedonian soldiers among the "coalition of the willing?" Selmani, an Albanian in the sometimes awkward position of covering Albanian members of parliament for a Macedonian-language newspaper, answers my question with more questions: Wasn't Iraq a danger to America? Didn't the invasion prevent Saddam from spreading terror throughout the Middle East? I disagree, noting that claims by President Bush and his administration about weapons of mass destruction and a "gathering threat" to American interests are proving false. But Selmani lives in a part of the world where civil war and ethnic cleansing to the north are fresh in the collective memory. So the idea that America, a nation he views as the world's military heavyweight, could dispose of a brutal dictator by invading isn't repugnant -- even if the original arguments for war prove false in the long run. Ratkoceri, whose Albanian-language daily will soon be published in the U.S. to reach growing Albanian populations along the East Coast, recounts the recent tangled history of the Balkan states. His detailed knowledge of the strife that brought the Serbs, Croats and Kosovars to arms would shame most of us, who would be hard pressed to name the 13 original Colonies, much less America's role in the Balkan peace-keeping mission. Sometimes it takes soft-spoken guests from another land to make us realize how insulated we are as Americans. Our military might be in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia, wielding heavy weapons in halting efforts to bring peace. We sit here at home, far from the violence and uncertainty that our military presence brings to some corners of the world. We'll complain and moan about the price we pay at the pump. We don't think about the greater price paid by people elsewhere,
[news] NATO is preparing for major war
NATO is preparing for major war - 05/21/2004 17:03 Vice-president of Academy of geopolitical problems, colonel- general Leonid Ivashov says on NATO approaching Russian borders in Utro interview. Utro NATO approached Russian borders, but young generations of Russians doubt if this is a threat to Russia, recent public opinion surveys demonstrated. Where do you see the threat to Russian security? Leonid Ivashov As for young people-s opinion, I am teaching at Moscow State Institute of International Relations and know that students are given too contradictory and scarce information. Professors have shortage of textbooks interpreting different doctrines, opinions and approaches. Young people are confused, they are disoriented and cannot see the long-term threat. Yes, NATO troops do not shoot and bomb Russia today, and this creates the impression that the threat is not real. One more thing: mass media, especially TV channels, do not create the ?image of the enemy, and young people do not read newspapers. For these reasons, it is hard for young people to determine their position on NATO. In addition, Western values are being planted in Russia, while its own historical and cultural roots are coming into oblivion. Currently our young people see Chechen terrorists are much bigger threat than NATO. Utro This is all mass media-s fault... Leonid Ivashov Mass media are a tool not only for expansion in peaceful period, but also for war. For example, mass media created demonic image of Slobodan Milosevic and Serbs in Europe and in America. As a result, the public did not protest when the aggression against Yugoslavia started in violation of international law. Then the principle of creating the image of demon was applied to Iraq. This is informational warfare, and its weapons are so powerful that any democratic leader loved by his people can be made a monster and demon in 2-3 weeks. Let us ask a question v for what reasons is NATO moving Eastward? NATO is a military machine increasing its potential, having many thousands of tanks and cannons, more than 5,000 military aircrafts, nuclear weapons. This machine is near our borders. A question to young people: why is NATO approaching Russia? For what reasons are the six aerodromes in the Baltic states being modernized for NATO-s strategic aviation landing (including aircrafts carrying nuclear weapons)? Utro Using the military language v for possible military actions in Eastern regions... Leonid Ivashov Certainly, and international terrorism is a good excuse for this. Earlier Communism was this excuse. Why can-t Americans find bin Laden? He is very convenient for them. Taliban has been defeated, and if al-Qaida is defeated, there will be no source of terrorism. Americans need this source. 40 countries are the members of the Council for European Partnership which is affiliated to NATO. Several years ago one of the NATO generals was speaking at the Council about the threat for NATO and Europe. The general named spreading weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking, illegal migration and terrorism as the threats, and said that NATO will concentrate on eradicating them. At that point, I asked a question, "Could you tell how mechanized division, Air Force and Navy will fight against spreading nuclear weapons, drug trafficking and illegal migrants. Could you share your experience of this?" They were confused, because no military organization will deal with these issues. I asked again, "70% of all NATO exercises are about starting a big war, winning domination in air, conducting defense operations and then attacking. Does your statement mean that you will turn to peace-keeping operations and fighting drug trafficking now? No reply again- We received NATO-s invitation for some of its military exercises, such as Balttops or the maneuvers in Poland. But all exercises always have two stages. First v when Navy is capturing terrorists- submarine. By the way, how can a sub with terrorists appear in the Baltic Sea? After capturing the sub, the commanders drink Champaign and say good-bye to the guests. Then the second, real stage of exercises starts v landing on the seashore with aviation support and destroying enemy-s objects, taking over settlements, destroying enemy-s aviation. All this is aimed against Russian Baltic Fleet. We can also see NATO working on the strategic purpose of controlling Russian Northern Fleet. Russia has the most powerful Navy carrying nuclear weapons, in the North. NATO set many radar stations in Norwegian Spitsbergen islands and in the Baltic States. There is an idea that at the last exercise of Russian Northern Fleet, Russian missiles could not be launched because of some electronic interference. The reaction of Russia is mainly about soothing itself. I believe that somebody should be prosecuted for undermining our military. Utro Can you say that so-called ?NATO belt is created
[news] THE DRAGON'S DRIVE FOR CASPIAN OIL
THE DRAGON'S DRIVE FOR CASPIAN OIL Download PDF Version By John C.k. Daly China's insatiable energy thirst is causing it to undertake a global search for energy supplies to sustain its booming economy. Beijing has injected itself into the complex Caspian chess match to ensure itself as large a share as possible of resources being developed there. This complex political and economic maneuvering forces China to deal with the Caspian's five riparian states - Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.Analysts estimate that within ten to fifteen years China will consume as much oil as the U.S. is consuming today and import about 75 percent of new global production. Beijing's aggressive policies in the Caspian will unsettle both Russia and the U.S., which are themselves vying for control over the oil-rich region. The only certainty is that China will make a determined effort to secure as much of the Caspian's exports as possible, as its future growth is critically dependent on continued access to reliable energy resources.China's economy expanded 9.7 percent in the first quarter of 2004, while its National Bureau of Statistics warns in a report that the country's booming economy combined with rising production levels has resulted in a shortage of supplies and inflated prices. Inflation has impacted even production of native fuel sources; in March alone the wholesale price of coal rose 24 percent from the previous year. Demand for electricity has also increased sharply; China used 1,891 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2003, an increase of 40.38 percent over the previous year's usage. Similar energy bottlenecks exist in China's consumption of natural gas. With liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand rising 12 percent annually, analysts estimate that China's annual consumption will reach 209-274 billion cubic yards by 2020. Experts estimate that by 2020, 49 percent of China's gas consumption will come from imports, with 10 percent provided by Russian and Central Asian nations and the remaining 39 percent being provided by other countries.According to recently released official statistics, China imported 91.13 million tons of oil in 2003, an increase of 31.3 percent over 2002. President of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association Tan Zhuzhou said that China's domestic crude oil consumption totaled 252.31 million tons in 2003, an increase of 10.15 percent over 2002. Oil industry experts predict that China's oil demand may rise 400 million tons by 2020, with an average annual increase of 12 percent. China first began importing oil in 1993.Compounding China's potential for energy shortages, China's per capita available energy reserves are much lower than the world average. In 2000, China's exploitable oil, natural gas, and coal reserve per capita were 11.1 percent, 4.3 percent and 55.4 percent of the world average respectively. Meanwhile, China's dependence on energy for social and economic development is greater than developed countries; in 2001, Chinese energy users spent $151 billion, 13 percent of the country's GDP, as compared to the U.S. rate of 7 per cent.China's Oil RequirementsOf China's 2003 total crude imports, 51 percent came from the Middle East. Like its neighbor and competitor Japan, China is desperately seeking ways to lessen its dependence on imports from the volatile region. Saudi Arabia supplied 15.18 million tons of oil to China in 2003, up 33 percent from the previous year. A short-term solution has been to increase imports from Russia. In 2003, Chinese imports from Russia rose 73 percent to 5.25 million tons. China National Petroleum Corp, which purchases most of China's imports of Russian crude, predicts that its imports will exceed 6 million tons in 2004. These imports come from Siberian fields, not the Caspian, and Beijing has been sucked into Kremlin politics over East Asian pipelines with its rival Japan. Moscow recently decided against its proposed Daqing pipeline in favor of a Japanese route. Accordingly, China is looking for a level playing field in the Caspian, particularly in its approaches to Iran and Kazakhstan.China's second largest oil company Sinopec is leading the charge into the Caspian; in 2004 the company will receive its first shipments of oil totaling 300,000 tons from overseas production sharing contracts with Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. In Azerbaijan, Chinese companies are only involved in onshore fields. The Chinese National Petroleum Corporation has invested $800 million in developing a section of the Kursengi-Garabagly field and signed additional contracts to develop other sites worth an additional $120 million. China's Shengli oil company in December signed a production-sharing contract with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan to explore and develop the Pirsaat oil field. Shengli will also help Azeri companies extend the production life
[news] APIS: media highlights for may 22, 2004
Media highlights for May 22, 2004 US policy criticized (Politika/Tanjug) Apart from verbal accusations by the State Department and the Congress, the US has done little towards settling the state-of-affairs in Kosovo and Metohija following the March events, assessed Lawrence Azl, the Chairman of the International Religious Freedom Watch (IRFW). In a Christian Science Monitor article he underlined that the anti-Serb and anti-Christian pogrom had occurred before the eyes of 20 000 NATO peace keepers who proved unable or unwilling to protect the Serb minority. The conversation of the deaf (Politika/Tanjug) Belgrade, Pristina and the UN have so far conducted the conversation of the deaf, assessed the Director of the International Crisis Group James Lyon, and stressed that, unfortunately, none of those three sides presented yet serious plans for Kosovo, reports VOA Radio. Lyon explained that, instead of the plan for Kosovo, three-year-old ideas of decentralization and cantonization were heated up. Holkeri again in hospital over exhaustion (Glas) UNMIK Head Harri Holkeri will not be dismissed, but the UN SG will appoint another SRSG if Holkeri is not able to return to Pristina for health reasons. From New York comes the news that Irish diplomat Richard Spring will arrive at the helm of UNMIK instead of Holkeri, but no one in UNMIK has been able to confirm this to us. According to Glas, Holkeri himself considers he will, nevertheless, be able to continue to perform his duty in Kosovo and Metohija, where he came in August last year. At the moment, Holkeri is in Finland, where he went for consultations with the doctors. Some time ago he started complaining that he was tired, because of which he had already been in Finland. Upon return to Pristina he was treated by French doctors, but he decided to go to Finland for consultations with the local doctor since, as he said, he couldnt understand the French. Gathering Albanians and their neighbors (Vecernje Novosti/Beta) Albanian political representatives from Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia s south and Macedonia have jointly assessed in Lucerne that Kosovos unresolved status is the cause for many problems in the region, Beta was told by the co-minister for returns in the Kosovo government Milorad Todorovic, who is also the participant of the gathering Albanians and their neighbors that began in Switzerland. Obvious is the intention of Albanian representatives to impose Kosovos unresolved status as the cause for all problems in the Balkans, mentioning it as a problem that should be resolved as a priority, said Todorovic and assessed that everything resembles blackmail that without the right of Albanians to resolve the status there is neither the realization of the rights of other communities to resolve their problems. Karamanlis against change of borders over Kosovo (Danas/Beta) Greek Premier Kostas Karamanlis said in Washington on Friday that he told President George Bush that borders must not be changed over Kosovo, and that both of them were worried over the situation there. At a press conference at the end of the five-day official visit to the US, Karamanlis stated that he mentioned Kosovo in talks with Bush, but didnt convey what Bush told him about that. I consider that the concern over Kosovo is mutual, and our stand, brought forward to President Bush as well, is that the development of the situation must not in any case reach the change of borders, said Karamanlis, and added he thought there was accord regarding this. Dinosha to Discuss Albanian Question in Montenegro Leader of the Democratic Union of Albanians (LUD) in Montenegro Ferhat Dinosha declared on Thursday that he is the only representative of the three-party coalition Albanians together to have been invited to take part in the Albanians and their neighbors roundtable in Luzern. Naturally, I will be discussing the Albanian question in Montenegro and its undefined status on the one hand, and the Albanian contribution to the affirmation of democratic values in our Republic, on the other, as well as about Albanians as a factor of peace and good inter-ethnic and inter-confessional relations, declared Dinosha. He said other participants from Montenegro at the roundtable include parliament chairman Ranko Krivokapic and Premier Milo Djukanovic. He expressed the hope that political figures from Kosovo will also attend the event in which high diplomats will also take part. Albanian Delegation at the Highest Level According to media in the Albanian capital Tirana, the top political representatives from that country will take part in the roundtable in Luzern, Switzerland on Friday and Saturday. Premier Fatos Nano, opposition leader Sali Berisha and former Premier Ilir Meta have already departed to Switzerland. Kassof: International Community Might Become Impatient With Absence of Dialogue Between Prishtina and Belgrade Director of NGO Project for ethnic relations (PER) Allan Kassof declared
[news] SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO: UNMIK Governer to Resign?
The mandates get shorter and shorter! I wonder why? Caught by surprise were they? They must be the only ones then. http://www.seeurope.net/en/Story.php?StoryID=50713 SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO: UNMIK Governer to Resign? 2004-05-19 13:07:24 Harri HolkeriKosovo's United Nations administrator Harri Holkeri returned to the protectorate yesterday following a brief illness, but hinted he might not be much longer in the post, Reuters reported. It remains to be seen, the 67-year-old former Finnish prime minister told reporters when pressed on his future in the role of Kosovo governor. Holkeri was due to meet the commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission, KFOR, in the evening and would see Kosovo's ethnic Albanian prime minister, Bajram Rexhepi, on Tuesday, officials said. He was due to fly to Finland on Tuesday, they added. Holkeri's grasp on the Kosovo problem was faulted by Western experts in mid-March following the worst ethnic violence in nearly five years. In two days of widespread unrest, 19 people died as rioting Albanians attacked minority Serb enclaves and clashed with NATO and UN police. Western powers admitted the violence came as a surprise and caught both the UN and NATO unaware. The March clashes focussed fresh attention on Kosovo by the European Union, the United States and Russia. Holkeri was admitted to hospital in France last week, following a diplomatic function, suffering from what doctors said was fatigue or possibly heart problems. I'm feeling quite better now. I'm here to exercise my powers, he told Reuters at Pristina airport yesterday. Asked to confirm he was leaving for Helsinki on Tuesday, he said: I don't know yet. But he added that he planned to go to Helsinki for a medical examination. I want to see my own doctor. My French is not so good, the chief administrator said. Holkeri is the fourth UN chief Kosovo has had since it became an international protectorate. Critics including former US Balkans troubleshooter Richard Holbrooke say the question of Kosovo's final status has been swept under the carpet. Holkeri's one-year, renewable mandate would normally expire in August. Possible successors, according to the local rumour mill, include former Irish foreign minister Dick Spring. Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
[news] German Company To Build Highway Between Kosovo and Albania
German Company To Build Highway Between Kosovo and Albania 21 May 2004 | 17:11 | RTK, Kosovo German company GBI won the auction for the construction of the Pristina-Durres road, Kosovar RTK TV reported. Kosovos President Ibrahim Rugova gave the agreement to the representatives of the company at a formal ceremony in Pristina. The company is expected to present a project for the building of the future highway soon. http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?catid=143newsid=40468ch=0datte=2004-05-21
[news] RUSSIA * ALPHABET * CYRILLICS
RUSSIA * ALPHABET * CYRILLICS COMMEMORATING INVENTORS OF CYRILLIC ALPHABET MOSCOW, May 21 (RIA Novosti's Tatyana Sinitsyna) - May 24 of each year sees a rain of flowers pour onto the monument to SS. Cyril and Methodius on Slavyanskaya Square, near Moscow's Kremlin. This is the day when the Russians and other Slav nations commemorate the 9th-century apostles who created what later became known as the Cyrillic alphabet. Monuments to Cyril and Methodius can be found all across Russia, and their number keeps growing. This year, for instance, a five-meter-tall memorial has been erected in the city of Saratov, on the Volga River. Cyrillics Day celebrations traditionally include folklore pageants, academic symposiums, and church services to remember the canonized brothers. Cyril and Methodius, born into the Slavic-speaking community of Saloniki, in Macedonia, served as Byzantine Christian missionaries in Slav lands. They created a new uncial cursive, Glagolitic, on the basis of the Greek alphabet and used it for translating scriptural and liturgical texts for the Slavs. Glagolitic was later developed into Cyrillics (the script was thus named for the elder of the two brothers, Cyril). The Cyrillic alphabet is used to this day by the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Belarussians, the Bulgarians, the Serbs, and the Macedonians. Russian Cyrillics underwent significant changes in the times of Emperor Peter I (1672-1725). Some of the letters were excluded altogether, and the writing form of others was simplified. During the reign of Catherine II, the script was modified further by Princess Yekaterina Dashkova, the first President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Another major spelling reform came in 1917, when the Bolsheviks simplified the Russian orthography to encourage mass literacy. Today, writing system reform is back on the political agenda. Some of the Russian MPs go as far as proposing that Cyrillics be replaced with the Roman alphabet to make it easier for the nation to integrate into Europe. Linguist Vitaly Kostomarov, a detractor of any such reform, reminds to those progressive-minded lawmakers that Russian is one of the world's six major languages and that its cultural significance is based on great literary classics. Also, one-third of the world's contemporary scientific and technical writings are in Russian. The famous American chess player Robert Fischer, for one, began studying Russian to get access to the wealth of chess literature written in the language. The idea of transferring Russian spelling from Cyrillics to the Roman alphabet may be realistic technically. But how can the nation's literary heritage be recoded, Kostomarov wonders. Russian linguists have no worries about the Russian language's development in the 21st century, Kostomarov says. Of course, it will be changing to reflect new realities. But perpetual change is precisely what makes human languages immortal. http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160msg_id=4347679startrow=1date=2 004-05-21do_alert=0 Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
[news] Depleted Morality
Depleted Morality The first signs of uranium sickness surface in troops returning from Iraq By Frida Berrigan Sergeant Mark Callihan (right) and Staff Sergeant Sean Bach inventory 25mm depleted uranium rounds at their base in Tikrit, Iraq. Its a year into the occupation and U.S. troops are being killed at a rate of more than four a day. These deaths from roadside bombs, suicide attackers, anti-U.S. militia and mobs of angry civilians make headlines. More quietly, American soldiers also are beginning to suffer injuries from a silent and pernicious weapon material of U.S. origindepleted uranium (DU). DU weaponry is fired by U.S. troops from the Abrams battle tank, A-10 Warthog and other systems. It is pyrophoric, burning spontaneously on impact, and extremely dense, making DU munitions ideal for penetrating an enemys tank armor or reinforced bunker. It also is the toxic and radioactive byproduct of enriched uranium, the fissile material in nuclear weapons. When a DU shell hits its target, it burns, losing anywhere from 40 percent to 70 percent of its mass and dispersing a fine toxic radioactive dust that can be carried long distances by winds or absorbed into the soil and groundwater. The U.S. Army and Air Force have fired 127 tons of DU munitions in Iraq in the last year, says Michael Kilpatrick, the Pentagons director of the Deployment Health Support Directorate. At the beginning of Aprilthe deadliest month of the war and occupation so fara New York Daily News investigation found that four National Guardsmen have been contaminated by radioactive dust. The men were part of the 442nd Military Police Company based in Orangeburg, New York, which went to Iraq last summer to guard convoys and prisons and train the new Iraqi police. While the whole company is due back in the United States by the end of April, a number of soldiers were sent home early, suffering from persistent headaches and fatigue, nausea and dizziness, joint pain and excessive urination. They sought medical attention and testing from the Army but were ignored. Nine of the returned soldiers, frustrated with this treatment, sought independent testing and examination from a uranium expert contracted by the New York Daily News. The independent experts tests showed four of the soldiers had high levels of depleted uranium in their systems. Asaf Durakovic, a physician and nuclear medicine expert with the Uranium Medical Research Center based in Washington, examined the GIs and performed the testing. The Daily News quoted him as saying: These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle. Other American soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted uranium exposures. Second Platoon Sergeant Hector Vega tested positive for DU exposure. He is a 48-year-old retired postal worker from the Bronx and has served in the National Guard for 27 years. After being stationed in Iraq last year, he suffers from insomnia and constant headaches. Durakovic found that Vega and three of his fellow Guardsmen are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. These cases raise the specter of much more widespread radiation exposure among coalition soldiers and Iraqi civilians than the Pentagon predicted. Pentagon spokesmen consistently have maintained that depleted uranium is safe for U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. In May 2003, the Associated Press quoted Lt. Col. Michael Sigmon, deputy surgeon for the U.S. Armys V Corps, saying, There is not really any danger, at least that we know about, for the people of Iraq. Sigmon asserted that children playing with expended tank shells would have to eat and then practically suffocate on DU residue to cause harm. Yet, according to a 1998 report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the inhalation of DU particles can lead to symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, lymphatic problems, bronchial complaints, weight loss and an unsteady gait. These symptoms match those of sick veterans of the Gulf and Balkan wars. In November 1999, NATO sent its commanders the following warning: Inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium dust particles has been associated with long-term health effects, including cancers and birth defects. A study that same year found that depleted uranium can stay in the lungs for up to two years. When the dust is breathed in, it passes through the walls of the lung and into the blood, circulating through the whole body, wrote Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a Canadian epidemiologist. When inhaled, she concluded, DU represents a serious risk of damaged immune systems and fatal cancers. A four-year study released last year by the Defense Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found significantly higher prevalences of heart and kidney birth defects in the children of Gulf War
[news] The Passion of Michael Moore
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4926362-110878,00.html The Bushes and the Bin Ladens: passionate anti-war film is a tale of two families Peter Bradshaw on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11Peter BradshawTuesday May 18, 2004 The GuardianIt was strident, passionate, sometimes outrageously manipulative and often bafflingly selective in its material, but Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was a barnstorming anti-war/anti-Bush polemic tossed like an incendiary device into the crowded Cannes festival. It included a full-scale denunciation of the links between the Bush and Bin Laden families, the petro-commercial association which allowed dozens of the Bin Laden family to leave the country for Saudi Arabia after 9/11 and which necessitated the Iraq war as a massive diversion. Moore also has queasy new war zone footage of US soldiers humiliating their prisoners while others snap away with their digital cameras, although he is noticeably keen to demonise the politicians, not the military. A documentary is highly unlikely to win the Golden Palm, but this was an exhilarating and even refreshing film, especially coming at a time when political commentators on either side of the Atlantic - progressives and ex-progressives alike - are apparently too worldly and sophisticated to be angry about the war. At Cannes this time last year, Franco-American relations were so bad and feelings so high that this movie could hardly have been shown without a riot. Now it was received in a mood of simmering, twitchy consensus. One American PR cracked: "It made me wanna burn my passport!" There are fewer of the jokes and wacky stunts that entranced and enraged in his anti-gun documentary Bowling For Columbine; it is mostly a straight stitching together of clips and graphics with Moore's droll, faux-naif voiceover. It does not have a big "showdown" moment, like Moore's encounter with Charlton Heston, although the director shouts out questions to the president he derisively calls Governor Bush and is rewarded by him with a snarling suggestion that he should get a real job, which takes some effrontery coming from the slacker fratboy head of state who makes Ronald Reagan's workload look Stakhanovite. Fahrenheit 9/11 cheekily begins with "feed" footage of the major players - Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz - smirking, and preening themselves as they prepare to go on TV. Wolfowitz even has a habit of licking his comb before running it through his hair, which got a deafening "eeeuw" from the audience. Here they are, is the implication, the whole corrupt gang who fixed the 2000 election, which began when Bush's cousin John Ellis, a Fox News executive, was instrumental in "calling it" for Bush/Cheney on election night and cowed the other networks into joining in. From there, Moore sketches out the Texan-Saudi link through the Bin Ladens. This very much involves George Bush Sr, who far from being a retired old gentleman, is a vigorous player in the business and political scene, fully availing himself of the ex-presidential prerogative of receiving intelligence briefings. Moore has a terrifying and funny sequence when he shows the rabbit-in-car-headlights _expression_ on the president's face when he is told about the second plane hitting the towers while at a children's literacy event. A stopwatch appears in the corner of the screen, as the minutes tick by and the president keeps reading My Pet Goat, not knowing what to do without his advisers to tell him. The Afghanistan war comes and goes without the capture of Osama bin Laden, although Moore stops short of saying the Bush administration doesn't want the embarrassment of catching him. Terrorism licences the big war on the diplomatically safe target of Iraq, in whose reconstruction the big companies have a vested interest, and Moore's overall narrative arc takes us to the homeland security issue, its concomitant politically profitable culture of fear, and the US military's recruiting grounds of blue collar America, getting poor blacks and whites to fight Mr Bush's war as the body count ratchets upwards. Moore centres a big emotional moment on a bereaved military mom, mourning her son outside the White House. This explains Moore's reluctance to emphasise the issue of torture. Moore's big omission is Tony Blair and the UK. He has a clever pastiche of the opening title-sequence of the old TV western Bonanza, with Bush and Blair mocked up to look like cowboys. But in a section about the ramshackle "coalition of the willing" which was supposed to lend international legitimacy to the invasion, there is no mention of the part played by this country. This can only be because of Moore's insistence on America's international isolation and arrogance. It's a strange, skewed perspective. Meanwhile wrangling about corporate pressure on Moore goes on. The director himself claims that Mel Gibson, head
[news] Virtual walk through Gracanica Monastery
May 6th, 2004 The BLAGO Fund announces the completion of work on the archives of the Monastery Gracanica Washington-Belgrade-Grachanica - The BLAGO Fund of the Serbian Unity Congress announces the completion of work on the archives of the Monastery Gracanica. The computerized virtual reality walk through and around the chuch, together with several thousand digital pictures and slides can be found on the BLAGO web site and is available for public viewig. In the summer of 2003, the BLAGO team visited the monastery and created raw material for the archive of the Monastery. Situated in central Kosovo-Metohija, Gracanica represents a masterpiece of Serbian medieval, later Byzantine, and world art in general. At the same time, its architecture, fresco paintings, and the location itself presented the greatest challenge the team had faced to date. After six months of intensive work, the archive is finaly available for public viewing. Authentic computerized virtual reality of the exterior and interior of he church, along with detailed fresco pictures, present the largest public archive of any monastery up to date. In the tradition of the BLAGO Fund, material presented can be freely used to promote and research Serbian heritage. Visit the archive at http://blago.serbianunity.net/Archives/Gracanica/ Since 1998, the BLAGO Fund of the Serbian Unity Congress created archives of several monasteries, including Ravanica, Mileseva, Kings Church at Studenica, and Gracanica. Concurrently with this, it has supported numerous artistic young talents from the Serbian lands. The BLAGO team consists of professionals in photography, computer technology, art, history and fresco conservation. It adheres to strict production and academic standards in all phases of operation, ensuring the generation of comprehensive material. Contact:Andrew Verich, 202-463-8643 Serbian Unity Congress, BLAGO FUND2311 M Street, Suite 402Washington, DC 20037202-463-8643, fax 202-318-4757 If you want to unsubscribe from this mailing list, please go to mailing list homepage Copyright © 1996-2004 Serbian Unity Congress : Our mission : Projects ::: Main server : News server : BLAGO server :::
[news] WMDs found/used in Iraq
Thanks to the moron occupying the white house and his arse-kissing buddy in number ten, Iraq is more dangerous than ever, more a threat, more violent and more deadly to americans and brits than ever it was prior to last year's war (which of course continues to this day). 'Sarin bomb attack' on US troops http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1218878,00.html Agencies Monday May 17, 2004 A roadside bomb containing a small amount of the nerve agent sarin has exploded near a US military convoy in Iraq, the US military announced today. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq, said the US weapons inspection team, the Iraq Survey Group, had confirmed that a 155mm artillery round containing sarin had been found in Baghdad. The find is the first confirmed discovery of any of the weapons that the US-led coalition had accused Saddam Hussein of harbouring before they attacked Iraq last year. The round had been rigged as an IED [improvised explosive device] which was discovered by a US force convoy. A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent, he said. IEDs are a favoured tool of Iraq insurgents trying to target US convoys as they drive by. 'The round was an old binary type requiring the mixing of two chemical components in separate sections of the cell before the deadly agent is produced, Brig Gen Kimmitt said. The cell is designed to work after being fired from an artillery piece. He said the dispersal of the nerve agent from a device such as the homemade bomb is limited, and there were no casualties as a result of the blast, which occurred a couple of days ago SNIP more online -- Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
[news] US officials: 60% of Iraqi prisoners arrested by mistake
Top Commander Bars Coercive Tactics in Interrogation of Iraqis By ERIC SCHMITTPublished: May 15, 2004 ASHINGTON, May 14 Under a barrage of international and domestic criticism, the top American commander in Iraq has barred virtually all coercive interrogation practices, like forcing prisoners to crouch for long periods or depriving them of sleep, the Pentagon said Friday. The commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, will still consider requests to hold prisoners in isolation for more than 30 days, according to a senior Central Command official who briefed reporters on Friday. The general has approved 25 such requests since October, the official said. But the official said that General Sanchez would deny requests to use other harsh methods. "Simply, we will not even entertain a request, so don't even send it up for a review," the Central Command official said. Previously, certain interrogation techniques, including sensory deprivation were supposed to be used only with the general's explicit approval. General Sanchez issued the new guidelines on Thursday, the same day that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made a surprise visit to Baghdad and to Abu Ghraib prison, where the worst abuses occurred, in an effort to quiet the furor over the abuse scandal. Mr. Rumsfeld has said that the American military in Iraq was abiding by the Geneva Conventions, and that the mistreatment was the work of a terrible few. But at a Senate hearing on Thursday, Mr. Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, acknowledged that hooding prisoners or forcing them to crouch naked for 45 minutes tactics available to interrogators with General Sanchez's approval under the old policy was inhumane. The International Red Cross had warned American officials for months that Iraqi prisoners were being abused in American-run prisons. The senior Central Command official said the coercive practices were dropped because General Sanchez was not receiving requests to use most of them. But the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, acknowledged that it was "likely that the heightened scrutiny of the last couple weeks" had prompted General Sanchez to revise the interrogation rules. He said Mr. Rumsfeld did not order General Sanchez to change the policy. The changes appear to affect only operations in Iraq, and would not change interrogation methods at the American base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or in Afghanistan. The rules also apply to any civilian contractors. The Army's top intelligence officer, Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, had presented to senators this week a list of techniques, some of which were approved for use on all prisoners and others that required General Sanchez's approval. The chart also listed safeguards, including a warning that "approaches must always be humane and lawful." Senators said at the hearing on Tuesday that General Alexander had characterized the one-page chart as a product of the American military high command in Baghdad. But the Central Command official disclosed Friday that the document was actually produced sometime in October by the Army's 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which oversaw interrogations at Abu Ghraib. The Central Command official also said that until last fall, commanders did not have an interrogation policy specific to Iraq. That changed, however, after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the head of detention operations at Guantanamo Bay, visited Iraqi prisons last September and recommended several changes, including the creation of a specific interrogation policy for prisons in Iraq. An interim policy, from Sept. 14 to Oct. 12 last year, spelled out approved interrogation techniques for all prisoners, a separate list of harsher tactics that required General Sanchez's approval, and the list of safeguards. A revised policy took effect on Oct. 12 that dropped the listing of the approaches needing the general's approval, although the Army intelligence brigade that actually conducted the interrogations produced a chart that kept the old listings, and posted it as a guide. (Page 2 of 2) A senior military official said the American headquarters in Baghdad expected interrogators and their commanders to request exceptional permission for any approach that was not in the pre-approve category. "There are reasonable people and very intelligent people who can differ on what is authorized, what's permissible under the Geneva Conventions," the official said. Advertisement The official said, for instance, that there were harsher approaches, now barred by General Sanchez, that in his view did not violate the Conventions. The official said requiring a prisoner to stand at attention would be an example of what military interrogators call "a stress position" that would
[news] Life Is a Miracle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4924823-110430,00.html Film Life Is a Miracle 2 stars Cannes festivalPeter BradshawSaturday May 15, 2004 The GuardianIf ever there was film-making with a hairy chest, it's the kind practised by Emir Kusturica, that most virile of directors. Swirling, sprawling, brawling and caterwauling - these are just some of the words that come to mind for this movie, set in Bosnia during the 1990s war. Kusturica keeps the action in perpetual, cacophonous uproar. Just as in Underground or Black Cat White Cat or, well, really any of his films, he has his Gypsy band honking and parping away pretty much 100% of the time; he has geese and dogs and donkeys and cats scurrying about and performing impeccably for the camera and everyone is shouting at each other just so they can be heard above the din. Kusturica can't see a hillside without wanting someone to roll down it. Technically and logistically, the management of each chaotically energetic scene is unquestionably a marvel. But the unrelenting, browbeating energy never allows room for the story to breathe. It's like turning up late to a party to find everyone is just too drunk to offer you a glass. Then there is the curious effect of positioning the story in the middle of one of modern history's great humanitarian tragedies. This is intended to be a Romeo-and-Juliet tale of a Serbian railway engineer whose son is taken prisoner by the Bosnian Muslims, and who falls in love with the Muslim woman his side are keeping for a possible prisoner exchange to get him back. As it happens, this Muslim is a blonde babe who has plenty of semi-nude love scenes. For those who remember the Bosnian war in terms of ethnic cleansing and mass graves, this might look like naivety - but as far as Kusturica is concerned, naivety is the prerogative of the international media in the form of a clueless American TV reporter. Kusturica's monomaniacal dedication to creating the same spectacle for film after film is beginning to tire. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
[news] Speech of Fidel Castro regarding Bush's War on Terrorism
Title: Message Speech of Fidel Castro regarding Bush's "War on Terrorism" May 2004www.globalresearch.ca 1 May 2004 The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/405A.html In an address to one million people at a march in Havana , Fidel Castro said that "the US president had no right to lecture anyone on such things as democracy or human rights." Proclamation by an adversary of the US government Mr. George W. Bush: the million Cubans who are gathered here today to march past your Interests Section is just a small part of a valiant and heroic people who would like to be here with us, if it were physically possible. We have not gathered in a hostile gesture to the American people whose ethics, rooted in the time when the first pilgrims emigrated to this hemisphere, are well known to us. Neither do we wish to upset the officials, employees and guards of this mission, who are given all the safety and guarantees that a civilized and educated people such as ours can offer while they serve their terms. This is an outraged protest and a denunciation of the brutal, ruthless and cruel measures against our country that your country has just adopted. We know beforehand what you believe or want to make others believe about those who are marching here. In your opinion they are oppressed masses who yearn for liberty and who have been forced onto the streets by the Cuban government. You completely ignore that no force in the world could drag a dignified, proud people, which has withstood 45 years of hostility, blockade and aggression from the most powerful nation on earth, on to the streets like a flock of animals each one with rope around their neck. A statesman, or whoever claims to be one, should know that down through history really humane ideas of justice have been shown to be much more powerful than force; force leaves in its wake only dusty, contemptible ruins; humane ideas leave a luminous trail that no one will ever be able to extinguish. Every era has had its own ideas, both good and bad ones, and they have accumulated. But the worst, most sinister and uncertain ideas belong in this era in which we live in a barbarous, uncivilized, globalized world. In the world that you seek to impose on us today there is not the slightest notion of ethics, credibility, standards of justice, humanitarian feelings, nor of the elementary principles of solidarity and generosity. Everything that is written about human rights in your world, and in the world of your allies who share in plundering the world, is an enormous lie. Billions of human beings live in infrahuman conditions starving, without enough food, medicine, clothes, shoes or shelter and without even a minimum amount of knowledge or enough information to understand their tragedy and that of the world in which they live. Surely nobody has told you about the tens of millions of children, adolescents, youths, mothers, middle or elderly people who die every year but that could have been saved in this "idyllic Eden of dreams" which is Earth, nor have they told you at what rate the natural conditions for life are being destroyed and that the hydrocarbons which took the world 300 million years to create are being squandered in a century and a half, with devastating effects. You have only to ask your assistants for precise data on the tens of thousands of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, bombers, smart long range missiles, battleships and aircraft carriers, conventional and non-conventional weapons in your arsenals which are enough to wipe out all life of the planet. Neither you nor anyone else would ever be able to sleep again. Neither would your allies, who are trying to emulate your military build-up. If your allies low responsibility coefficient, political talent, inequality between their respective states and their infinitesimal inclination to reflect in the time they have left between protocols, meetings and advisors, are taken into account, those who have the destiny of the world in their hands can harbor few hopes when, half puzzled half indifferent, they gaze upon the real madhouse that world politics has become. The purpose of these words is not to offend nor insult you: but since you have set out to intimidate, to terrorize this country and eventually to destroy its socio-economic system and independence, and if necessary its very physical existence, I consider it my elemental duty to remind you of a few home truths. You have neither the morality nor the right, none whatsoever, to speak of freedom, democracy and human rights when you hold enough power to destroy humanity and are attempting to install a world tyranny, side-stepping and destroying the United Nations Organization, violating the human rights of any
[news] Singing for Serbia
Title: Message Singing for Serbia David Lublin (5:55PM) link BELGRADE. The Eurovision song contest is American Idol meets the Miss America pageant. Each European country, even the small fry like Andorra, selects one singer to compete. Organizing the contest has become more complicated as the number of countries in Europe multiplies. Maybe Montenegrin Prime Minister Djukanovic can increase support for Montenegrin independence by pointing out that Montenegro would get its own separate slot in the Eurovision song compeititon if it seceded from the loose federation of Serbia and Montenegro. Most of this years Eurovision entrants chose to sing in English though Serbia and Montenegros representative struck a blow for European diversity by singing in Serbian. I only know that the Serbian hopeful sang in Serbian because somebody told me. I watched the Balkan portion of the contest in a seemingly hip place called Que Pasa? that had the television muted while it played other music. It didnt seem to matter too much. Bosnia and Herzegovina sent a young blond teenybopper (think Sting at age 15 with no depth) who jumped up and down a lot. Albanias female entrant wore an outfit that seemed at odds with the supposed premium placed on female modesty in Albania according to every book Ive read. However, the Bosnian (or Herzegovinan?) male entrant wore even less so why should she be criticized? Many of the more chic restaurants in Belgrade have English names. If the characters on Sex and the City lived in Belgrade, they would have drinks or lunch at Tribeca one of the few places in Belgrade that serves lots of salads. Last night, I had dinner with five new Serbian friends at Dorian Gray. Arnold Schwarzenegger would have felt quite at home as they even had wines from Kalifornija, as it is spelled in Serbian. http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200420#307
[news] The West in the Balkans
The West in the Balkans Interview with Serbianna http://www.serbianna.com/columns/mb/024.shtml May 9, 2004 (Interviewing: Mickey Bozinovich) Sam Vaknin is an Israeli who has been living in the Balkans, the Czech Republic and Russia since 1991. He worked in Yugoslavia as advisor to various industries and companies in the manufacturing and finance sectors (1991-1994). In 1996, he moved to Macedonia and served there as advisor to the Agency of Privatization and the Stock Exchange (1996-7) and Economic dvisor to the Government of Macedonia (1999-2002). During that period he wrote economic and political columns for Central Europe Review. He then joined United Press International (UPI) as a Senior Business Correspondent covering central and eastern Europe (2001-2003). Many of his articles and essays were reprinted by Serbianna. In both Croatia and Bosnia Western response has been to stay on the sidelines to a certain escalation point of the warfare, then demand that their troops enter the conflict zone. Agreements always followed their military presence. Kosovo was no different. If Milosevic could not have foreseen this pattern, as you recently made a statement, what then does this say about his leadership of Serbia? SV: Kosovo cannot be compared to Croatia or Bosnia. Kosovo was (and, technically, is) an integral part of Serbia, an autonomous province, not a republic-constituent of the former Federal Yugoslavia. During the initial phases of KLA activity (1993-6), Kosovars did not overtly wish to secede from (the truncated) Yugoslavia. As I said in my interview to Balkanalysis earlier this year: (Milosevic) had (no) 'plan' as far as Kosovo is concerned. He simply wanted to eradicate what he regarded as criminals in cahoots with terrorists - and many Kosovars considered as freedom fighters. A typical Balkan policing operation was labeled 'Ethnic Cleansing' by the West (mainly by the Americans) and treated as genocide by the emerging system of supranational courts. Milosevic could not have foreseen these surrealistic turns of events. He reacted as any besieged self-respecting politician would have. He fought back. In the last decade, many have been puzzled over persistently wrong policies the West implemented in the Balkans, especially its support of separatist agendas. Do you think that the West was more interested in stationing their armies throughout the Balkans and has thus supported these separatists as an excuse to enter the region on an excuse of conflict resolution? As a result of the Kosovo conflict, for example, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania have become military stations. SV: The war in Iraq has exposed the deep fissures in the monolithic facade so painstakingly cultivated by Western leaders during the Clinton decade. The truth is that, in the Balkans, the West spoke in (at least) two voices during the 1990s. Germany, out to reestablish its hinterland, encouraged (at first surreptitiously and then openly) the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The United States, France, and other European countries were against. In 1989, the West was utterly uninterested in the Balkans. It is an impoverished, backward, crime-ridden, crumbling, institutionally dysfunctional corner of Europe. With the exception of Greece and Bulgaria it has little geopolitical or military merit. The West - namely, NATO and the USA - was reluctantly dragged against its will and judgment into the Balkan quagmire, coerced by the emerging doctrine of humanitarian intervention and by the EU's military impotence. The USA would love to get its tortured forces out of here and hand this benighted and insignificant region over to the inapt, understaffed and under-equipped European Union. America's interests elsewhere - in the oil rich Middle East and Caucasus, for instance - are far more vital. But the EU - aware of its shortcomings and limitations - seeks to prolong America's involvement in the region. As to separatist movements - this is a classic pattern of American global (mis)behavior. The United States is a kind of Dr. Frankenstein, spawning mutated monsters in its wake. Its drain and dump policies consistently boomerang to haunt it. Both Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega - two acknowledged monsters - were aided and abetted by the CIA and the US military. America had to invade Panama to depose the latter and plans to invade Iraq for the second time to force the removal of the former. The Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), an American anti-Milosevic pet, provoked a civil war in Macedonia three years ago. Osama bin-Laden, another CIA golem, restored to the USA, on September 11, 2001 some of the materiel it so generously bestowed on him in his anti-Russian days. Normally the outcomes of expedience, the Ugly American's alliances and allegiances shift kaleidoscopically. Pakistan and Libya were transmuted from foes to allies in the fortnight prior to the
[news] The United States Institute of Peace Public Meeting: Kosovo Serbia, What Now?
Title: Message Institute Public Meeting Kosovo SerbiaWhat Now? Date:Thursday, May 20, 2004Time:3:004:30 PMLocation:U.S. Institute of Peace1200 17th St., NWWashington, D.C.Directions Almost two months after the violence of March 2004in which 19 people lost their lives, nearly 1,000 were injured, over hundreds of homes were destroyed, more than 4,500 displaced and dozens of churches, monasteries, mosques, and public buildings damagedserious questions remain in both Kosovo and Serbia. What were the underlying causes of the violence? Have these been addressed in a comprehensive and timely manner? What impact has the violence had on the domestic political situation in both Kosovo and Serbia? On May 20 the Institute's Balkans Working Group will sponsor a special public meeting on "Kosovo Serbia: What Now?" Moderated by Institute senior fellow Albert Cevallos, the session will explore issues such as: What will become of the "Standards Before Status" process? What is the future of relations between Kosovo and Serbia? What are the implications for an international community distracted by peacekeeping operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere? Speakers Alex AndersonDirector, Kosovo Project, International Crisis Group James LyonDirector, Serbia Project, International Crisis Group Moderator Albert CevallosSenior Fellow, U.S. Institute of Peace RSVP Information This event is free and open to the public, but as seating is limited, registration is required for those wishing to attend in person. To reserve a seat for this presentation, please RSVP by e-mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Please be sure to include your name, affiliation (if any), and daytime phone.http://www.usip.org/events/2004/0520_wksserbia.html
[news] Russian troops withdrew from Serbia too early
Title: Message Russian troops withdrew from Serbia too early - 05/14/2004 14:18 Before the 5th anniversary of the beginning of NATO aggression against Yugoslavia, massacre of Serbs took place in the area. 28 people were killed, 850 wounded, more than 3,500 evacuated. The NATO aggression was started under the excuse of stopping ethnic cleansing. However, genocide to Serbs was not stopped by NATO troops. Even Commander of NATO peace-keepers in Southern Europe recognizes that ethnic cleansing is in progress in Kosovo. International peace-keeping forces in Kosovo were not ready for such developments of the situation . More than 60 peace-keepers were wounded during Albanian separatists uprising. Today international troops protect only NATO prestige and their own lives, but not the minorities of the region. They did not really have this purpose in mind. As a participant of the negotiation on Kosovo, I realized long time ago that the NATO and the forces behind it were looking any excuse to interfere in Yugoslavia s domestic affairs, establish pro-NATO government, disintegrate the country and oppress Serbs. Kosovo radicals were acting as NATO allies, the alliance provided them with weapons and training, encouraging their activity on disintegrating the country. In December 1998 Russian Army General Staff gave NATO Commander general Wesley Clarke detailed information on the weapons the Albanian radicals had, the ways of their supplying with weapons, the location of the combatant bases and so on. Joint actions could stop this dangerous process. However, NATO did nothing to stabilize the situation. Moreover, in January 1999 general Clarke complained that NATO intelligence was weak and could not confirm the information of Russians. The drama was Russia s failure to support Serbia. Russia wanted to be good for everybody, it did not want conflicts with NATO (after Russia-NATO Act was signed in 1997, but could not support NATO either. Russian mass media depicted Slobodan Milosevic as the murderer of innocent civilians in Kosovo. Only after NATO started bombing Yugoslavia, the Kremlin urged by Russian society, expressed its protest against the aggression. But it did not provide the victim of the aggression with the assistance as UN Chapter requires. Russia did not even request the UN to have urgent meeting of the Security Council. Serbs were fighting with courage, while NATO was exhausted. The main anti-Serbian tool was used special envoy of Russian President Mr. Chernomyrdin. He was appointed on this post under the US administration request. Victor Chernomyrdin ignored the requests of Russian President, Foreign and Defense Ministries and supported NATO by signing the ultimatum prepared by American delegation. Mr. Chernomyrdin arrived in Belgrad and submitted this ultimatum to Yugoslavian authorities. Even President Yeltsin was indignant with his envoy s conduct and sent the telegram in Belgrad to force him to follow President s orders. No result, and Serbs being friendly to Russia, had to accept the ultimatum. The advance of Russian paratroopers and deploying them in strategic aerodrome Slatina inspired Serbs again. Russian soldiers did not allow to intimidate civilians and destroy Orthodox churches in Kosovo. wever, this support did not last long either. Russian Ministry of Defense considered the mission completed and withdrew the troops from Kosovo. This was the second case of letting Serbs down. This was the result of Russia's failure to introduce coherent foreign policy. Too many Russian officials want to be good for Washington and Brussels in the first place. Russia is encircled by NATO bases. Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan allowed NATO troops on their territory. Belarus has been under pressure both from the East and the West, and can join NATO in future. NATO aircrafts patrol the air space of the Baltic countries former Soviet republics. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry and Army General Staff continue saying that there is no threat from the West for Russia. UN resolution # 1144 authorizes and urges Russia to interfere in the Kosovo events. The situation in the region would be absolutely different if Moscow made a statement of its readiness to deploy Russian troops in Kosovo. Russia could have offered Serbian forces to participate, and this would protect Serbian minority in the region. The Germans and French would act differently under these circumstances as well. The dvelopments in Kosovo undermine Europe. European politicians realize that the USA is creating a criminal enclave in the Balkans, and it will shake Europe for many years. This is revenge to Europe for growing anti-Americanism and resistance to the war in Iraq. Were Moscow more confident, it could have a support of some European countries, especially Germany and France. Russia s lack of firmness contributes neglecting international law and driving Serbs out of
[news] News, 15.05.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News 15. 05. 2004, 16:00 UTC -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Torture Photos Traumatize Refugees in Germany Officials at German centers for the treatment of torture victims say the graphic photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse have triggered painful memories among their patients, most of them asylum-seekers. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_1203523_1_A,00.html -- Enjoy our World News newsletter? Why not also subscribe to Daily Bulletin, DW-WORLD's latest daily digest of the day's top German and European stories, delivered to you around 18:30 UTC. To find out more and sign up, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english/newsletter -- U.S. forces kill 21 Iraqis in Baghdad clashes The United States military has said that American forces have killed least 21 Iraqis in operations in Baghdad in the past 24 hours in an effort to restore stability to the capital. The US military said most were killed during operations in Sadr City in north-east Baghdad, where radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr draws support. In the mean time, reports from the holy city of Najaf claim that armed militiamen loyal to al-Sadr are gathering in the city. Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush has announced that US troops will stay in Iraq after the June 30 handover of power. Israel hits Islamic Jihad sites Israeli helicopters have hit Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip following attacks led by the Palestinian militant group. Helicopter gunships fired eight missiles at two buildings housing the Islamic Jihad headquarters. The group said its leader was not in his office at the time of the strikes. The premises of a pro-Jihad charity were also attacked. Israel called both targets militant fronts. Meanwhile in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, witnesses said Israeli bulldozers had razed scores of homes. The army said it had demolished buildings used as gun nests by militants. Jordan calls for a Palestinian state Jordan's King Abdullah has urged world leaders to commit themselves to a Palestinian state and be active in the reconstruction of Iraq during his opening address of the World Economic Forum. King Abdullah said support for regional peace and stability were essential and must include peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.The business forum brings over 13-hundred of the world's elite to a Jordanian resort on the Dead Sea. The Middle East peace process, Iraq's reconstruction and other pressing regional political issues are expected to dominate the three day event. Surge of support for Sonia Gandhi Key allies of India's Congress party have expressed their support for leader Sonia Gandhi. This comes after the Congress unanimously re-elected Ghandi as its parliamentary head. The move takes her one step closer to being named the country's next prime minister. The Communist party of India Marxist and the Comnmunity Party of India said that they supported Ghandi. The Congress Party scored a surprise election victory this week and is now on course to form a coalition government expected to take power within days. North Korea lashes out at the US North Korea has accused Washington of wasting time after a low-level round of six party talks on PyongYang's nuclear drive ended inconclusively on Friday. The talks involved China, Russia, the two Koreas, the US and Japan. US insistence that North Korea dismantle its nuclear program before asking for aid was the key sticking point during the talks. North Korea's official media quoted a foreign minstry spokesman saying that if the US continues to pressurize North Korea to disarm then PyongYang will build a stronger nuclear deterrent force. China has said that another round of low-level talks will be held before top-level meetings at the end of June. Israeli missiles strike Palestinian militant headquarters Witnesses in Gaza City say Israeli helicopter gunships have fired up to five missiles at a building housing the Islamic Jihad headquarters. The Palestinian militant group said its leader Mohammed al-Hindi was not in the office at the time of the night-time strike. Witnesses say at least eight people were wounded, and that there were three more strikes elsewhere in the city. Earlier, snipers shot dead two Israeli soldiers in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza. A Palestinian man was killed in an Israeli missile strike, as the Israeli army began razing houses in the Rafah camp. Army
[news] Dancing Alone
Dancing Alone By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: May 13, 2004 Columnist Page: Thomas L. Friedman Iraq It is time to ask this question: Do we have any chance of succeeding at regime change in Iraq without regime change here at home? Hey, Friedman, why are you bringing politics into this all of a sudden? You're the guy who always said that producing a decent outcome in Iraq was of such overriding importance to the country that it had to be kept above politics. Yes, that's true. I still believe that. My mistake was thinking that the Bush team believed it, too. I thought the administration would have to do the right things in Iraq from prewar planning and putting in enough troops to dismissing the secretary of defense for incompetence because surely this was the most important thing for the president and the country. But I was wrong. There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so. It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West. I admit, I'm a little slow. Because I tried to think about something as deadly serious as Iraq, and the post- 9/11 world, in a nonpartisan fashion as Joe Biden, John McCain and Dick Lugar did I assumed the Bush officials were doing the same. I was wrong. They were always so slow to change course because confronting their mistakes didn't just involve confronting reality, but their own politics. Why, in the face of rampant looting in the war's aftermath, which dug us into such a deep and costly hole, wouldn't Mr. Rumsfeld put more troops into Iraq? Politics. First of all, Rummy wanted to crush once and for all the Powell doctrine, which says you fight a war like this only with overwhelming force. I know this is hard to believe, but the Pentagon crew hated Colin Powell, and wanted to see him humiliated 10 times more than Saddam. Second, Rummy wanted to prove to all those U.S. generals whose Army he was intent on downsizing that a small, mobile, high-tech force was all you needed today to take over a country. Third, the White House always knew this was a war of choice its choice so it made sure that average Americans never had to pay any price or bear any burden. Thus, it couldn't call up too many reservists, let alone have a draft. Yes, there was a contradiction between the Bush war on taxes and the Bush war on terrorism. But it was resolved: the Bush team decided to lower taxes rather than raise troop levels. Why, in the face of the Abu Ghraib travesty, wouldn't the administration make some uniquely American gesture? Because these folks have no clue how to export hope. They would never think of saying, Let's close this prison immediately and reopen it in a month as the Abu Ghraib Technical College for Computer Training with all the equipment donated by Dell, H.P. and Microsoft. Why didn't the administration ever use 9/11 as a spur to launch a Manhattan project for energy independence and conservation, so we could break out of our addiction to crude oil, slowly disengage from this region and speak truth to fundamentalist regimes, such as Saudi Arabia? (Addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.) Because that might have required a gas tax or a confrontation with the administration's oil moneymen. Why did the administration always rightly bash Yasir Arafat, but never lift a finger or utter a word to stop Ariel Sharon's massive building of illegal settlements in the West Bank? Because while that might have earned America credibility in the Middle East, it might have cost the Bush campaign Jewish votes in Florida. And, of course, why did the president praise Mr. Rumsfeld rather than fire him? Because Karl Rove says to hold the conservative base, you must always appear to be strong, decisive and loyal. It is more important that the president appear to be true to his team than that America appear to be true to its principles. (Here's the new Rummy Defense: I am accountable. But the little guys were responsible. I was just giving orders.) Add it all up, and you see how we got so off track in Iraq, why we are dancing alone in the world and why our president, who has a strong moral vision, has no moral influence. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/opinion/13FRIE.html Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
[news] The European Union and German influence in Eastern Europe
Title: Message German influence in Eastern Europe OXFORD - Germany played an important role in splitting Czechoslovakia and breaking up Yugoslavia in the Nineties. This is shown in a speech that was given by Miroslav Polreich, a former Czechoslovak OSCE-ambassador, in the year 2000 in Oxford. As Polreich explains, the German government also argued against a possible peaceful settlement of the then ,,ethnic" conflicts in Kosovo. Source:www.freenations.freeuk.com The European Union and German influence in Eastern Europe By Dr. Miroslav PolreichThank you very much. I am glad to be here in this nice, historical city, especially among people with an economic and intellectual awareness, and people who are so active democratically.Well you know, I have studied American foreign policy all of my life, but if there is one thing I do not understand, it is American foreign policy, because it's unpredictable. Being a Czech, and my grandfather was German - my name is Polreich, which indicates my German origins - and being from Europe, and I would say, not only from Eastern Europe, I have to follow German policy. I am not a good student of German policy, but I understand it very well.Well, being from Czechoslovakia, and from the Czech Republic now, I give you a very short glimpse of the country. You know, Czechoslovakia was considered as a more Western type country, because we had democracy between the wars. You know, Pilsudzki Poland, Horthy Hungary, not to mention Germany, were the fascist regimes, all surrounding Czechoslovakia. Then came Munich [the notorious Munich agreement between Britain, France, Italy and Germany, in 1938, when the Sudeten territories were given to Germany]. So historically we were always content to belong to the West.As you know the country has now split - into Slovakia and the Czech Republic - 5 million Slovaks and 10 million Czechs. In Slovakia there are 600,000 Hungarians in the southern part, and about 400,000 gypsies, which you should know about (many have sought asylum in the UK - ed). The split was very peacEful. It was not necessary to do it, because if there had been a referendum, everybody says that 70 percent of Slovaks would say ,,We want to stay in Czechoslovakia", and 70 of Czechs would say ,,We want to stay in Czechoslovakia". So why did they split? It's because of the power of the media, and much of which even at that time - I'm speaking about late 1992 - was already in the hands of Germans. In my country there is only one leading paper which could be described as independent. All the others are controlled by German interests, either by ownership, which is about 90%, or by the power of advertisement. Remember that newspapers live by advertisements and massive areas of our economy are controlled by foreign corporations. So, there were some articles saying that we should split otherwise there might be war - newspaper sales thrive on sensationalism! But at that time, the Czech Prime Minister Klaus, and the Slovak leadership negotiated in many meetings and they decided the country should divide. There was no crisis - Slovaks wanted to be free, have their own president, ok, they have it, and Czechs said, after all, well, Slovakia is a poor part of our country, we will be better off, anyway, so let them go, and be free. We cooperated, there's no problem, we are friendly.I know Yugoslavia - we know that Serbs and Croats, they don't like each other, and so on. But human beings as such don't hate each other by nature, but nationality can be very easily misused by politicians. Let's say 20% of Croats and Serbs married each other. They didn't even think about what they were - that my wife or grandfather is Croat or Serb. They didn't care. But then they started to care, because it served a purpose. Those communist leaders, lets say moderate communist leaders, because Yugoslavia was different from other eastern, Russian-controlled countries. So, they exploited national differences to incite hatred. You know my diplomatic career stopped when I was at the Security Council protesting the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and one interesting point is that Yugoslavia was afraid that the Russians would continue and attack Yugoslavia as well. So, besides the federal army, they created local, national army units. And those units have been used recently to fight the federal army but those units had been established in order to resist the Russians in '68.Well, then after the Russian invasion I was not able to travel, I was not able to do my job, I was unemployable because I was considered to be a traitor - my children understand what it means to be children of a traitor. But Czechoslovakia is now under a transition, economic transition, which means privatization. We Czechs - we don't have any money. So, privatization means that somebody else has to come from abroad to buy almost everything the State used to own. Well, our richest
[news] Balkans Soldiers Find Fortune in Baghdad
Title: Message IRAQ:Balkans Soldiers Find Fortune in Baghdad Vesna Peric Zimonjic Fighting gets into your veins, said men who fought in former Yugoslavia. And so now that peace has come to their homeland, many have moved to Iraq.BELGRADE, May 12 (IPS) - Fighting gets into your veins, said men who fought in former Yugoslavia. And so now that peace has come to their homeland, many have moved to Iraq. "There is no doubt that there is a growing demand for mercenaries or soldiers of fortune in Iraq," military analyst Slobodan Kljakic told IPS. "Within the community close to those circles, a number of between 500 and 1,000 Serbs is mentioned. They have already obtained contracts to work as security staff or bodyguards in Iraq." U.S. corporate giants engaged in oil exploitation and reconstruction of Iraq such as Halliburton or the San Francisco-based Bechtel have turned to private security companies like Blackwater Security Consulting or Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), Kljakic says. U.S. and British sources place the number of privately contracted security personnel in Iraq between 10,000 and 15,000. "It's up to them (security companies) to try to find and subcontract the workforce for Iraq," Kljakic said. "After that it's easy for people from here to enter Iraq." Under decades-old regulation, Serbs do not need visas for Iraq. Besides the mercenaries who are rarely mentioned publicly, Serbs are getting other business offers. Some of the largest international media outlets are relying on Serb crews, given their experience in war coverage and because they can easily enter the country. The role of civilians contracted to work in Iraq came under the spotlight after four U.S. security contractors met grisly deaths in Fallujah in March. In the Balkans, where interest in Iraq is low, this event attracted particular attention. One of those killed was a Croat, Jerry Zovko, who changed his first name when he became a naturalised U.S. citizen. "It's a public secret that people engaged in this line of work can earn between 100,000 and 200,000 dollars a year," says Croatian journalist Marina Seric. Her research in the Zovko case attracted wide attention in Croatia. "One cannot establish the exact number of Croats who have been contracted to work as security personnel in Iraq," she told IPS. "But the bottom line is that they all used to be professional soldiers. They are aged between 30-45. Depending on their experience they do different jobs -- simple protection, logistics, training." Serb youth seems to have found a new hero. The Belgrade press has carried interviews with Misha Misic, a security specialist who earns 500 dollars a day in Baghdad protecting oilfields. He claims to have gone to Iraq as an adventurer to earn money. "With more and more countries withdrawing their troops from Iraq, as Spain did, the U.S. will break new ground in modern warfare," says foreign policy analyst Predrag Simic. "More and more mercenaries will take the place of regular troops. It might look as a kind of relief for the public in those countries that sent troops to Iraq, as the bodies of mercenaries are shipped home in coffins without national flags or fanfare." Stories of mercenaries going to Iraq abound in Serbia, but it is hard to trace the channels that lead them there. >From time to time, small ads appear in Serbian papers announcing "the need for security personnel with experience". The phones in the ads are not local. Similar ads are appearing in newspapers in neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbia has some 3,000 security firms. Most employ some 30,000 former policemen or war veterans. These companies put up a wall of silence every time Iraq is mentioned. Owners of the two most prominent security firms, Fitep and Protecta, decline to speak about mercenaries, and say people are free to do individually whatever they want. "There is no licensing or official registration of those agencies," Marko Nicovic, vice-president of the International Bodyguard and Security Services Association told IPS. "Many are closely linked both to criminals and police. There is absolutely no control, there is a complete chaos." Nicovic says mercenaries could be finding their way to Iraq through sub- contracting companies that advertise on the Internet. "It's easier, safer for them," he says. Nicovic points to a recent statement by Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor of the United Nations-founded International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The South African jurist said former hit men from South Africa together with Serb mercenaries and war criminals are finding gainful employment in Iraq. "It is just a horrible thought that such people are working for the Americans," Goldstone said. (END)http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23707
[news] Kosovo Now A 'Ghetto Of Suffering' For Serbs
Title: Message Serbia and Montenegro: Foreign Minister Says Kosovo Now A 'Ghetto Of Suffering' For Serbs By Robert McMahon United Nations, 12 May 2004 (RFE/RL) -- The foreign minister of Serbia and Montenegro says international reform efforts in Kosovo must be based on restoring full rights and security to the province's Serbian minority. Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic told the UN Security Council yesterday that Kosovo's Serbs have suffered under the international administration of Kosovo. The outbreak of anti-Serb violence in March, he said, was a consequence of the UN's failure to address nearly five years of ethnic crimes that followed the ouster of Serb forces from the province. Draskovic cited Belgrade's new plan for decentralization of power and self-rule for Serb-populated pockets of the province, saying it is the best path to reconciliation of Serbs and Albanians. He dismissed talk of the province's final status under current conditions. "We should not think today in terms of final status, since all the rights of Serbs are being tragically violated in Kosovo and Metohija. And this ghetto of human suffering cannot constitute the basis for any final status of Kosovo and Metohija," Draskovic said. Kosovar Albanian leaders have pledged to help rebuild Serbian churches and other structures destroyed during the violence in March. But Draskovic called for an urgent program to rebuild what he estimated at 40,000 Serbian structures damaged in the past five years, including churches and monasteries. The foreign minister said such a massive rebuilding effort should be internationally funded. The restoration of cultural sites, he said, should be supervised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Draskovic said international security forces in Kosovo should guard churches and monasteries because they belong to the world's cultural heritage. "This ghetto of human suffering cannot constitute the basis for any final status of Kosovo and Metohija." -- Serbia and Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic"I call on the international community to assist and help the Serbs and other non-Albanians in the same way the ethnic Albanian population was assisted after 10 June 1999," Draskovic said. The UN administrator of Kosovo, Harri Holkeri, said the improvement of welfare for the Serbian population is now at the center of the reform effort known as "standards before status." Holkeri also took note of the Serbian call for cantonization but said any new plans for power sharing must be agreed among Kosovar parties. He encouraged Serbian officials to re-engage in the reforms implementation plan and in restarting the dialogue with Pristina over key technical issues, including the return of Serbian displaced persons. "I understand their doubts after the terrible shock of the recent violence, but such participation is the best way to ensure their voice is heard and to protect their interests," Holkeri said. Holkeri said he was taking steps to strengthen the partnership of the UN mission -- known as UNMIK -- and the Kosovo Provisional Institutions of Self Government (PISG). This includes efforts to devolve more power to ethnic Albanian authorities and to accelerate privatization efforts . But Holkeri expressed concern at the level of commitment of the provisional authorities on issues such as safeguarding the return of Serbs. He said the pace of power transfer will depend on how local officials handle their responsibilities and improve conditions for minorities. "Our efforts to build and increase engagement with the PISG will depend to a great extent on how seriously the PISG are committed to taking the responsibility we offer them. They must above all show real progress on standards implementation, reconciliation, and reform of local government," Holkeri said. Albania's UN ambassador, Agim Nesho, also called on Kosovars to take steps toward building a multiethnic society by protecting the rights and freedoms of minorities. But he urged the Security Council to remain committed to the standards process as the best way of assuring democratic reforms in Kosovo. He said the council should not consider Belgrade's proposals on decentralizing power in Serb-population areas. "This process of building up a multiethnic society cannot be held back by new proposals of old ideas of division and cantonization, shaped with a legal cover and introduced as a democratic process for the decentralization of power," Nesho said. Council members today generally reaffirmed their support for the standards implementation plan. There was a renewed call for Kosovar Albanian leaders to demonstrate their willingness to protect minority rights. Many spoke of the need for progress to come swiftly because the Security Council is expected to review the standards in about one year and make recommendations related to final status of the province.
[news] A Beheading Deja vu
http://antiwar.com/blog/ AntiWar Blog A Beheading Deja vu Photos of Nick Berg's beheading weren't shown to the general public, but a colleague of mine nonetheless remembered something similar she saw during the Bosnian War. Apparently, decapitation of captured Serb soldiers and civilians was rather common for the mujahedin fighting for the Bosnian Muslims. These photos were never published, either, not because they were too graphic, but because they were politically incorrect. The executioners were designated victims by most international media, while the victims were considered genocidal aggressors. Ten years later, the pictures survive - an eerie parallel to what is happening in Iraq. Posted by: Nebojsa Malic on May 12, 04 | 9:51 pm | Comments? | link
[news] News, 12.05.2004, 16:00 Uhr UTC
Deutsche Welle English Service News 12.05.2004, 16:00 UTC -- Final Round: Go East! The EU Quiz: Europe is expanding East. Embark on a journey through the 10 candidate countries set to enter the EU by playing the fourth and final round of DW-WORLD's Go East quiz. Lots of great prizes are waiting to be discovered. http://dw-world.de/go-east -- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: German Finance Minister Faces Week of Truth Finance Minister Hans Eichel is under intense pressure ahead of the release of tax estimates that will likely reveal a massive budget shortfall and lead to another violation of the EU Stability Pact. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1431_A_1199403_1_A,00.html -- US investigating Berg kidnapping in Iraq US authorities in Iraq are investigating the kidnapping of an American businessman who was shown being beheaded by Islamic militants on a videotape. A spokesman for the US-led coalition, Dan Senor, told reporters in Baghdad that they were determined to find out the circumstances in which Nick Berg was kidnapped. Berg was arrested by Iraqi police in the Mosul area in March. Senor said he was released in early April and advised to leave the country. In a video on an Islamist website linked to the Al-Qaeda terror network, Berg was shown being decapitated by a group of masked men. The men said this was in revenge for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops. Israel targets Gaza City neighbourhood Three Palestinians have been killed and several others injured after an Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile near a mosque in Gaza City. The air strike took place in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza. That's where Palestinian militants blew up six Israeli soldiers in a troop carrier during a raid on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad says it has reached an agreement with Israel on the return of the soldiers' remains. Fischer to meet US national security adviser German foreign minister Joschka Fischer meets today with U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, concluding his two-day visit to Washington. The main topic of the talks will be the situation in Iraq and the Middle East peace process. On Tuesday Fischer told U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that the United States had to restore its moral leadership by investigating and bringing to justice those responsible for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Fischer said that he had been shocked and deeply appalled at the images of US troops abusing Iraqi inmates. The German Foreign Minister also stressed that the world needed the leadership of the United States and its values of freedom and democracy. U.S. army says kills at least 20 Iraqi militiamen U.S. troops killed at least 20 fighters loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr in a battle in the Iraqi city of Kerbala, the U.S. army said on Wednesday as Shi'ite groups held talks to try to end the cleric's uprising. The rebel Shiite Iraqi cleric vowed to continue fighting US forces occupying Iraq and to die as a martyr. The latest fighting erupted on Tuesday evening and raged until about midday on Wednesday, with members of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia holed up in a mosque and surrounded by U.S. troops backed by tanks and armoured vehicles. A senior U.S. officer in Baghdad said 20 to 25 militiamen had been killed and seven American soldiers wounded. Al Assad says US a source of instability Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has accused the United States of being a source of instability in the Middle East and warned that hatred toward Americans was growing in the region. His comments were made in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais and before Washington's announcement that it was imposing new sanctions on Syria, charging it with supporting terrorism. The sanctions will freeze Syrian assets in the US, shut down all Syrian air traffic to the US and limits American exports to the country except food and medicine. US investigates alleged Afghan prisoner abuse The United States Embassy in Kabul has announced that the US military has opened an investigation into allegations that an Afghan police officer was stripped naked, beaten and photographed at an American base in Afghanistan. An embassy statement said the alleged abuse occurred in August 2003 at the US base in the eastern town of Gardez, 100 kilometers south of Kabul. It stated that U.S. officials had learned of the allegations from the media. The New York Times quoted
[news] Torture and War Crimes
Centre for Research on GlobalisationCentre de recherche sur la mondialisationGLOBAL RESEARCH (CANADA) : FEATURE ARTICLES ON TORTURE AND WAR CRIMES Bush appoints a Terrorist as US Ambassador to Iraq, Michel Chossudovsky http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO404E.htmlCrimes in Iraq: As American as Apple Pie, Felicity Arbuthnot, 14 Mayhttp://globalresearch.ca/articles/ARB405A.htmlThe Merciless Killing of Nicholas Berg, Marwa Elnaggar, 14 Mayhttp://globalresearch.ca/articles/ELN405A.htmlAmerican army committed war crimes in Falluja on an unprecedented scale, Orit Shohathttp://globalresearch.ca/articles/SHO405A.htmlTorture: United Kingdom, United States and Israel Kings of Pain, John Stantonhttp://globalresearch.ca/articles/STA405A.htmlDid the US Military Target and kill the Red Cross Delegate on April 8 2003 to undermine the ICRCs activities in Iraq? Michel Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO310C.htmlGod, Country and Torture, William Blumhttp://globalresearch.ca/articles/BLU405A.htmlAbu Ghraib: Enough Shame for All, Jack Random http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RAN405A.htmlBertrand Russell Tribunal: Bush Cabal Plotted War on Iraq Years ago, Sara Floundershttp://globalresearch.ca/articles/FLO404B.htmlwww.globalresearch.ca 13 May 2004Media inquiries: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Unsubscribe: send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED], Unsubscribe in subject line
[news] Nicholas Berg was beheaded as terrorists beheaded Serbs
Title: Message Michael Zegarac: Nicholas Berg was beheaded as terrorists beheaded Serbs - 05/13/2004 08:00 Sir, Following the beheading of the American Nicholas Berg in Iraq, your readers might benefit by reading the prophetic words of President Slobodan Milosevic during his "Trial" at The Hague. Taken from the official Transcript of the Trial of Slobodan Milosevic, Friday, 27 September 2002. (I have added information in parentheses.) [START QUOTE] MILOSEVIC: These are crimes from the 26th of March, 1992, in Sijekovac. The units (Mujahedin) crossed the Sava River and slaughtered the Serbs. Please put the big picture on the overhead projector. That's it. That's what they did. That's what the Mujahedin did, the ones we saw yesterday. And we saw Izetbegovic (leader of the Bosnian Moslems) reviewing them yesterday. What's the matter? Is it not on the screens? JUDGE MAY: It's on the screen. Do you want the next photograph shown? MILOSEVIC: But I haven't seen it on the screen. I only see you on the screen. JUDGE MAY: It's on our screen. Make sure you've got the right button. MILOSEVIC: All right. All right. You don't want to show this. You don't want to show this to the public. JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, it is on our screen. MILOSEVIC: It's not on the screens that the public sees. Right. I see it on this screen now. But this internal screen only. So he is holding a head, the head of a Serb that he cut off. So those are the 20.000 Mujahedin that were brought to the European theatre of war through Clinton's policy, and most of them remained there and some went to America and to other countries, and they went all around Europe. And then when they start beheading your own people in wars to come, then you will know what this is all about. [END QUOTE] Peace and security in the Balkans, Chechnya and the United States have been compromised by the policies of Clinton, Albright, Holbrooke and George Soros, all of whom have promoted, financed, trained and armed Islamist terror groups around the world. Until the Americans recognise the folly of their actions in creating Islamist terror groups, then their so-called "War on Terror" will have no chance of success, and more innocent Serbs, Russians and Americans will die. Michael Zegarac, England PRAVDA.RuBack
[news] Balkans and Iraq: Whither Empire?
Title: Message Parallels, Contrasts and Questions Balkans and Iraq: Whither Empire? by Nebojsa Malic As revolting images of torture and degradation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib flooded the media, it was only a matter of time before someone would invoke the comparison with atrocities (allegedly) committed in the Balkans. But unlike the lurid Balkans stories peddled by activist journalists all too eager to embrace local propaganda, the Abu Ghraib atrocities were documented by their perpetrators, who apparently thought not only that they weren't doing anything wrong, but seemed to enjoy it tremendously. Predictably, reactions to the photos in the US range from shock and outrage to defensive rationalizations. But in the Balkans, one might wager that not a few souls are smiling weakly at the dubious joy of being proven right about the sanctimonious Americans and their insistence on "war crimes trials." Well, who's a war criminal now? As the Iraq drama unfolds, it is increasingly obvious that many things routinely practiced by the occupation troops have been called "atrocities" and "war crimes" when allegedly practiced by Balkans belligerents in the 1990s. There are more parallels with the Balkans, obviously. After all, it was the Balkans interventions notably, the 1999 occupation of Kosovo that made the 2003 invasion of Iraq politically palatable. Kosovo created a precedent for naked aggression based on lies and flimsy excuses, which nonetheless went unchallenged. Failures and Hypocrisies The prison abuse has already been called a "failure of leadership." But was it, really? Was not the entire Iraq war such a failure? Was not the mad march to Empire, in the first place? Coverage of Iraq reveals a consistency underlying the actions of US and British personnel: the natives are barbarians, sub-humans, and anything they do is vile; while they are virtuous liberators, and everything they do is blessed with goodness. In other words, it's not a question of deeds, but of doers a sure recipe for hypocrisy. As with everything under the "new logic," the nature of the action rests on the identity of perpetrator. Thus Americans presupposed to have noble motives can do whatever they please, while lesser peoples get put on trial. The same issue has cropped up in the Balkans. Actions that ought to have been universally condemned such as, say, ethnic cleansing were ignored or excused when practiced by "allies," and whipped up in a frenzy of demonization when allegedly practiced by "enemies." Siege and artillery attacks on civilians were considered "genocide," but terror-bombing from the air was deemed "humanitarian." One head of state has been accused of a "criminal conspiracy" for all the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and is considered guilty by fiat despite the utter lack of evidence, while the very real conspirators in Washington and London remain unmolested. Indeed, the US and its allies set up an entire elaborate kangaroo court in order to prosecute "war crimes" in the Balkans, while asserting their own immunity from such prosecution. It comes in handy when breaking into churches and clubbing priests nearly to death. Rape! Allegations are now emerging that Abu Ghraib abuses involved rape of women inmates. If true, would this make Abu Ghraib a "rape camp"? Some may recall that accusing the Serbs of setting up "rape camps" was a major part of the propaganda war in Bosnia and Kosovo. Whole books have been written on the subject, as if it has been proven beyond reproach. Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that rapes in Bosnia or Kosovo went beyond the extent commonplace in wartime (illustrating its inherently criminal nature). In fact, reporters determined to find evidence to fit their pet propaganda theories went so far as to see it in pornography found at abandoned military posts, as Scott Taylor memorably describes in both "Inat" and "Spinning on the Axis of Evil." But at Abu Ghraib and how many other such camps? there is no need to look for porn. Much of the evidence is already public. A Thought on Justice Following traditional logic and morality, both the alleged atrocities (if proven) in the Balkans and the abuses in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere would be considered criminal, and liable to be prosecuted in a real court. Of course, prosecuting war crimes (ius in bello) without criminalizing the initiation of war (ius ad bellum) is meaningless. Modern war crimes prosecutions are simply a tool of the "politics of guilt." That
[news] Kosovo teens claim harassment
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_193518.html ThePittsburgh Tribune-Review Home » News » Local News » Pittsburgh Kosovo teens claim harassment By Brandon KeatTRIBUNE-REVIEWTuesday, May 11, 2004 After fleeing Kosovo to escape ethnic strife, a group of refugees say they now face harassment and violence at North Hills High School because of who they are and the language they speak. Three Kosovar teenagers -- Bekim Krasniqi and Besim and Blerim Hysenaj -- were among nine students suspended by the school after a cafeteria fight April 30. They said the fight -- which attracted seven Ross police units and led to seven citations for disorderly conduct -- was the latest incident of discrimination and harassment they've had to endure. School officials are investigating the allegations. The Kosovars said shoves in the hallways, rude gestures and taunts of "refugee," "foreigner" and "go back to your country, you don't belong here" have been a constant part of their school lives for months. During an April 26 altercation between Blerim Hysenaj and an American youth, the refugees said, other students in the cafeteria began chanting "USA! USA!" "I brought them here for freedom," said Azem Hysenaj, 24, brother and guardian of Besim, 17, Blerim, 19, and Agon, 16. Now, Azem said, he is afraid to let his brothers return to the school. After the lunchroom melee -- in which police said chairs were thrown and several students had minor injuries -- Principal John McCurry said the fight had nothing to do with ethnic conflict. He described it as a typical juvenile altercation, possibly about a girl. The Kosovars disagree. "He knew perfectly. He knew everything," said Gazmend Murtezi, 22, who acts as a translator for the younger Kosovars. "Everybody knows it wasn't about a girl." McCurry has since declined to comment on the incident, but district spokeswoman Tina Vojtko said yesterday that it now appears the April 30 fight was retaliation for an incident earlier that week when one Kosovar struck another student. Vojtko said some students chanted "USA" during that incident. "Unfortunately, that did occur," she said, adding that McCurry used the public address system to tell students such behavior is not acceptable. Long-simmering conflict The Kosovars said they had complained to McCurry for months and told him they feared for their safety. Vojtko said high school administrators have tried to address the conflict between the Kosovars and other students. "They have met with the ESL (English as a Second Language) students to listen to their concerns, and following each and every meeting, the principals have investigated each allegation," she said. Vojtko said the ESL students would not have been informed of any disciplinary action that was taken against other students, and so might think that their concerns were not being addressed. She would not say whether anyone had been disciplined, citing student confidentiality. Krasniqi and Besim and Blerim Hysenaj were among the students cited for disorderly conduct, and they plan to fight the charges, which carry $320 fines, Murtezi said. Murtezi said that just minutes before the cafeteria fight, Bekim Hysenaj went to McCurry and told him the boys were afraid to go to the cafeteria that day. Vojtko said two ESL students did speak with McCurry that day but did not express any fear for their safety. "Had that occurred, the high school administration would have intervened immediately to protect that safety of all students," she said. The Kosovar students and their families took their complaints to the school board the Monday after the fight, and the district has launched an investigation. Under investigation Superintendent John Esias said all nine students involved in the fight have been interviewed, and he and McCurry are preparing a report for the board. "Obviously, everybody (involved) has their own story," Esias said. "We have a lot of people working on how to mediate with the students to try resolve (this conflict), as well as looking at what can we do for the entire high school, to make them realize this is not the way we want to operate," he said. "We certainly aren't going to tolerate students feeling unsafe in school." Vojtko said the results of the investigation will be provided to the school board May 17 but will not be made public. School board member Sylvia Lynn said she is troubled by the Kosovars' allegations. "It kind of caught us by surprise," she said. "These allegations are going to be taken very seriously, because we just can't do this. We just can't tolerate it." Although the Kosovar students have served their suspensions, Azem Hysenaj said they have not yet returned to school because they fear for their safety. Lynn said that is not acceptable. "We cannot have our children afraid to go to school," she said. Fear lingers Azem Hysenaj said he does not
[news] AN APPEASER IS ONE WHO FEEDS A CROCODILE HOPING IT WILL EAT HIM LAST
Title: Message KOSOVO AND METOHIJA By STANISLAV GAPAROVSKI, MEMBER OF BELGRADE FORUMLONDON, MAY 8, 2004. SPEECH AT LONDON UNIVERSITY EVERY TIME THAT TONY BLAIR AND HIS GOVERNMENT HAVE REFEREED TO THE PRESENT SITUATION IN KOSOVO, WAS TO TELL US ABOUT IMPROVEMENTS MADE, PROGRESS ACHIEVED AND HOW THE UNMIC AND KFOR ARE DOING A REMARKABLE JOB IN MAKING KOSOVO SAFER, AND MULTI-ETHNIC. THAT IS UP TO THE 17th OF MARCH OF THIS YEAR. ON THAT DAY A MOB OF SOME 50,000 ALBANIANS, IN 33 FLASH POINTS ACROSS THE KOSOVO METOHIA WENT ON AN ORCHESTRATED POGROM OF UNPROTECTED SERBS AND OTHER NON-ALBANIANS. THEY KILLED 19, INJURED 900, BITTEN AND TERRORIZED THOUSANDS, DROVE 4,500 FROM THEIR HOMES, THAN DESTROYED AND BURNED OVER 300. IN 3 DAYS OF THIS KRISTALLNACHT THEY DESTROYED 35 ADDITIONAL CHURCHES AND CHRISTIAN SHRINES, INCLUDING THOSE WHICH DATE BACK TO THE 12th AND 14th CENTURIES. SOME OF THEM BELONGING TO THE WORLD HERITAGE. THEY DESECRATED TOMBS, AND OBLITERATED ANYTHING BEARING THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. ALL THIS HAPPENED UNDER THE VERY EYES OF 18,000 UNMIK AND KFOR CONTINGENT. THEY WILL EVACUATE A HOUSE, OR A CHURCH, AND THAN STAND AND WATCH WHILE THE MOB BURN IT. KFOR AND UNMIK HAVE ADOPTED A POLICY OF: "EVACUATE AND LET THEM BURN"!MEDIA REPORTED THE REASON FOR SUCH OUT BURST OF VIOLENCE TO BE THAT 4 ALBANIAN BOYS HAD BEEN CHASED INTO THE RIVER IBAR BY AT LEAST 2 SERBS AND A DOG. THREE OF THE BOYS DROWNED AND ONE ESCAPED TO THE OTHER SIDE. HOWEVER, ACCORDING TO STATEMENT MADE ON THE 16th OF MARCH BY NATO POLICE SPOKESMAN DEREK CHAPPELL, I QUOTE: "THAT WAS DEFINITELY NOT TRUE". ADMIRAL GREGORY JOHNSON, THE OVERALL NATO COMMANDER, FURTHER STATED THAT THE UNSUING CLASHES WERE, I QUOTE: "ORCHESTRATED AND WELL-PLANNED ETHNIC CLEANSING" BY THE KOSOVO-ALBANIANS.THESE EVENTS MAY HAVE COME AS A SHOCK TO THE AVERAGE GOVERNMENT TRUSTING, TAX PAYING BRITISH CITIZEN, BUT NOT TO THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE CLOSELY FOLLOWED KOSOVO EVENTS FROM THE BEGINNING.AS YOU ARE WELL AWARE, FIVE YEARS A GO NATO HAS INTERVENED INTO KOSOVO METOHIA ON THE HUMANITARIAN PRETEXTS, TO PREVENT SO CALLED ETHNIC CLEANSING OF ALBANIANS BUY THE SERBS. NAMELY BY, AT THAT TIME YUGOSLAV ARMY AND SECURITY FORCES . IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY THEY BOMBED FOR 78 DAYS SERBIA, MONTENEGRO AND KOSOVO. KILLING THOUSANDS, DESTROYING SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, BRIDGES. NATO SEVERELY DAMAGED INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE ALREADY IMPOVERISHED COUNTRY. THEY DEED NOT HESITATE TO DESTROY RADIO AND TELEVISION BROADCASTING STATION, WHERE THEY KILLED 16 INNOCENT JOURNALIST.NATO RELEASED TOXIC SUBSTANCES, BY DELIBERATELY DESTROYING PETRO-CHEMICAL COMPLEXES. LEGACY OF THIS IS STILL PRESENT.BY USING 50,000 MISSILES WITH DEPLETED URANIUM HEADS, THEY EVEN LEFT A LEGACY OF POLLUTION FOR HUNDREDS OF GENERATIONS TO COME. WE ALREADY HAVE CHILDREN BORN WITHOUT SOME OF THE INTERNAL ORGANS, WITH NO EYES, AND WITH MANY OTHER CHARACTERISTIC DEFORMITIES. AND ALL THAT: IN THE NAME OF THE SO CALLED HUMANITY !?BUT, HAVE THEY MADE KOSOVO BETTER AND SAFER PLACE FOR NON-ALBANIANS? AFTER ALL THE BASE FOR NATO INTERVENTION WAS MULTI-ETHNICITY. IS TONY BLAIR TELLING THE TRUTH WHEN HE BRINGS KOSOVO AS AN EXAMPLE OF SUCCESS ? AS RESPONSE LET ME GIVE YOU SOME BASIC, REAL INFORMATION ON THE SITUATION IN KOSOVO THAT PRE-DATES THE LATEST POGROM:- KOSOVO IS NOW ALMOST SINGLE ETHNIC.- SOME 300,000 NON- ALBANIANS FROM KOSOVO METOHIA ARE ETHNICALLY CLEANSED. THEY LIVE IN SERBIA MONTENEGRO AS REFUGES SINCE 1999. NO EFFORT IS MADE TO BRING THEM BACK TO NATIVE LAND. THEIR PROPERTY IS FALSELY SOLD AND CONFISCATED.- SERBS IN KOSOVO ARE REDUCED TO LIVING IN WHAT AMOUNTS TO SERBIAN ENCLAVES.- ONLY KOSOVO "ECONOMY", APART WESTERN DONATIONS, IS SMUGGLING, WHITE SLAVERY, PROSTITUTION, DRUGS TRAFFICKING AND OTHER MAFIA TYPE OF BUSINESS. THAT, EUROPE HAS RECOGNIZED TO BE A BIG PROBLEM, AND DANGER.- 1,000 PEOPLE ARE KIDNAPPED,- 1,200 MURDERED,- 115 CHURCHES DESTROYED ( SO FAR A TOTAL OF 150),- NUMEROUS SERB GRAVE YARDS HAVE BEEN BULLDOZED, AND CONVERTED INTO PARKING LOTS, OR OTHERWISE OBLITERATED.- EPISCOPAL HOUSE IN PRIZREN IS TURNED INTO PUBLIC LAVATORY! ALL OF THE ABOVE ARE THE STATISTIC OF THE TIME OF PEACE, AND NOT OF THE TIME OF WAR. THIS IS THE TIME OF GOVERNMENT CLAIM OF PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENTS. IF THAT IS THE SUCCESS, HOW THE FAILURE SHOULD LOOK LIKE?BUT, MOST CONCERNING ASPECT OF ALL OF THE ABOVE IS THE EMERGENCE OF A PATTERN OF DELIBERATE ALBANIAN POLICY TO DESTABILIZE KOSOVO METOHIA IN ORDER TO CREATE A CLIMATE FOR
[news] BREAKING: CBS Will Air Iraq Prison Video Wednesday
BREAKING: CBS Will Air Iraq Prison Video Wednesday http://truthout.org/docs_04/051204AA.shtml Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
[news] The Election Is Kerry's To Lose
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=825 Released: May 09, 2004 The Election Is Kerry's To Lose By John Zogby [Press release] I have made a career of taking bungee jumps in my election calls. Sometimes I haven't had a helmet and I have gotten a little scratched. But here is my jump for 2004: John Kerry will win the election. Have you recovered from the shock? Is this guy nuts? Kerry's performance of late has hardly been inspiring and polls show that most Americans have no sense of where he really stands on the key issues that matter most to them. Regardless, I still think that he will win. And if he doesn't, it will be because he blew it. There are four major reasons for my assertion: First, my most recent poll (April 12-15) shows bad re-election numbers for an incumbent President. Senator Kerry is leading 47% to 44% in a two-way race, and the candidates are tied at 45% in the three-way race with Ralph Nader. Significantly, only 44% feel that the country is headed in the right direction and only 43% believe that President Bush deserves to be re-elected - compared with 51% who say it is time for someone new. In that same poll, Kerry leads by 17 points in the Blue States that voted for Al Gore in 2000, while Bush leads by only 10 points in the Red States that he won four years ago. Second, there are very few undecided voters for this early in a campaign. Historically, the majority of undecideds break to the challenger against an incumbent. The reasons are not hard to understand: voters have probably made a judgment about the better-known incumbent and are looking for an alternative. Third, the economy is still the top issue for voters - 30% cite it. While the war in Iraq had been only noted by 11% as the top issue in March, it jumped to 20% in our April poll as a result of bad war news dominating the news agenda. The third issue is the war on terrorism. Among those who cited the economy, Kerry leads the President 54% to 35%. Among those citing the war in Iraq, Kerry's lead is 57% to 36%. This, of course, is balanced by the 64% to 30% margin that the President holds over Kerry on fighting the war on terrorism. These top issues are not likely to go away. And arguably, there is greater and growing intensity on the part of those who oppose and want to defeat Bush. The President's problem is further compounded by the fact that he is now at the mercy of situations that are out of his control. While the economy is improving, voters historically do not look at indicators that measure trillions and billions of dollars. Instead, their focus is on hundreds and thousands of dollars. In this regard, there is less concern for increases in productivity and gross domestic product and more regard for growth in jobs and maintaining of health benefits. Just 12 years ago, the economy had begun its turnaround in the fourth quarter of 1991 and was in full recovery by spring 1992 - yet voters gave the President's father only 38% of the vote because it was all about the economy, stupid. The same holds true for Iraq. Will the United States actually be able to leave by June 30? Will Iraq be better off by then? Will the US be able to transfer power to a legitimate and unifying authority? Will the lives lost by the US and its allies be judged as the worth the final product? It is difficult to see how the President grabs control of this situation. Finally, if history is any guide, Senator Kerry is a good closer. Something happens to him in the closing weeks of campaigns (that obviously is not happening now!). We have clearly seen that pattern in his 1996 victory over Governor Bill Weld for the Senate in Massachusetts and more recently in the 2004 Democratic primaries. All through 2003, Kerry's campaign lacked a focused message. He tends to be a nuanced candidate: thoughtful, briefed, and too willing to discuss a range of possibly positions on every issue. It is often hard to determine where he actually stands. In a presidential campaign, if a candidate can't spell it out in a bumper sticker, he will have trouble grabbing the attention of voters. By early 2004, as Democratic voters in Iowa and elsewhere concluded that President Bush could be defeated, they found Governor Howard Dean's message to be too hot and began to give Kerry another look. Kerry came on strong with the simplest messages: I'm a veteran, I have the experience, and I can win. His timing caused him to come on strong at the perfect time. As one former his Vietnam War colleague of told a television correspondent in Iowa: John always knows when his homework is due. Though he is hardly cramming for his finals yet and is confounding his supporters, possible leaners, and even opponents with a dismal start on the hustings, the numbers today are on his side (or at least, not on the President's side). We are unlikely to see any big bumps for either candidate because opinion is so polarized and, I believe, frozen in place. There are still six months to go
[news] Yugoslavia back on the map
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=528952004 SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY Sun 9 May 2004 Former Yugoslavia back on the map for British tourists MURDO MACLEOD THE former Yugoslavia has re-established itself as one of Europe's major holiday destinations, with the number of UK visitors already breaking the 150,000 barrier for the first time in over a decade. British holidaymakers are flocking back to the former Yugoslavia, attracted by low prices and stunning scenery and architecture. Prior to the series of bitter wars which saw the break-up of Yugoslavia, the country attracted 500,000 British tourists each year, mainly to Croatia. They were attracted by the low prices, the scenery, and the fact that tourists did not need to apply in advance to get a visa for the country. Now Croatia is attracting the majority of the UK visitors heading for the former Yugoslavia. In the nine years since the country has been at peace, British visitors have begun heading back. In 2002, 126,000 Britons visited. Last year the number hit 138,000. This year travel operators have already broken the significant 150,000-visitor barrier. They say that British and German holidaymakers are swapping the battle of the early towels on beaches for a bidding war for holiday homes on the islands of the Adriatic. A spokesman for the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), said: The trendiest destination this year is undoubtedly Eastern Europe and especially the former Yugoslavia. Tourists are heading for Croatia mainly and also for Slovenia. The expansion of the EU has meant there is a lot more interest in the east of Europe. A lot are also keen on Bulgaria. But the former Yugoslavia is where it's at right now. For the future I would keep my eye on Belgrade, I reckon that will become a big attraction in years to come. Attractions in Croatia include the historic coastal city of Dubrovnik as well as the elegant capital Zagreb, Roman ruins, and the country's many beaches, islands, and stunning lakes. Tourism is the country's biggest single industry, accounting for 15% of gross domestic product. While British visitors mainly focus on the beaches and the old cities, Croatia is also trying to market itself as a destination for hunters, mainly from France and Germany. Despite having enjoyed nearly a decade of peace, Croatia is still dealing with the aftermath of the war in 1991. There are an estimated 1,000 square miles of the country which are still littered with mines or unexploded bombs. Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
[news] Finally, The End Of Canada?!
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=2383 Finally, The End Of CanadaBy Jamie GlazovFrontPageMagazine.com | June 7, 2001 ALMOST HALF of Canadians believe it is highly likely Canada will join the United States within ten years. Thats what an opinion poll, released on June 3 by EKOS Research Associates, a Canadian polling and research firm, tells us. This isnt really big news. It simply means that almost half of Canadians are willing to reconcile themselves with reality. Lets face it: globalization is the way of the future. It cant be stopped. That means that Canadas destiny being absorbed into the American empire -- is much closer than we think. As a Canadian, I can hardly wait. I must admit: the supremacy of globalization and free trade fills me with an intoxicating sense of glee. After all, the victory of unrestrained international capitalism translates into market forces running unhindered in Canada, which, in turn, translates into a diminishment of Canadian "sovereignty" that absurd joke that has imposed socialized health care, federal funding of bilingualism and multi-culturalism, and other intellectually-bankrupt policies, onto heavily-burdened Canadian taxpayers. Canadian governments will finally have to listen to the market, rather than to leftwing ideologues and elites, and shed the last remnants of the Canadian welfare state. And as multinational corporations gain power, and national barriers come tumbling down, the forces of deregulation and privatization will triumph, leaving Canadian socialism where it belongs on the ash heap of history. These developments will yield less government spending and low taxes, which will encourage stimulated savings and investment in the economy, which will mean more economic growth. More growth, meanwhile, will foster new jobs, products and factories, which, in turn, will lead to a better redistribution of wealth, as well as an increase in the standard of living for most Canadian citizens. And as government regulation will almost totally disappear, Canada will lose any ability to control incoming foreign investment. In this way, it will lose its ability to control its own economy which is good. The pull to the south will become unstoppable. The benefits of these developments will feed off of themselves. Just think about it: the Canadian government will no longer have an excuse to fund bilingualism, since the market, which reveals the preferences of people better than any government program can, will expose how economically irrational and unpopular it is. Canadian taxpayers will save millions of dollars. But it gets better: with the dismantling of official bilingualism, Quebec will finally come to terms with what it should have come to terms with long ago: it has no place in Canada. The good news, therefore, is that Quebec will finally separate. And good riddance. And then, the good news really starts: with French Canada finally gone, English Canada will be blessed with losing its last pretence of possessing any unique characteristics whatsoever. With Quebec gone, English Canadians will no longer be able to say, "Were not like those Americans," without someone else rejoining: "Oh? And how is that?" And there will be no answer, because there will be nothing to say. Canadian nationalists will finally have to admit the bitter truth: that Canadians are Americans in everything but name. The charade of how "we are different" will come to its long-awaited conclusion. Finally Canadians will be able to free themselves from trying to be patriotic by insulting Americans. In this way, they will stop negatively stereotyping Americans -- a behavior which has always manifested a dark and ugly strain of hatred in the Canadian psyche. It is simply hilarious, in the most tragic sense, how Canadian nationalists have always prided themselves on their politically-correct tolerance and "multi-culturalism," while they have engaged in anti-Americanism -- a disposition, as sociologist Paul Hollander has demonstrated, that is directly related with racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism. In Canada, of course, it has always been legitimate to be a bigot, as long as it has involved hating Americans. We will soon be able to say goodbye to that pathological double-standard. We will also be able to say goodbye to the endless smug complaining that many Canadians engage in about how "stupid" Americans are since Americans do not know anything about us. The bottom line is that Americans in Los Angeles and New York City do not need to know anything about Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, nor about anything else Canadian. Thats because, no matter how much the truth hurts, it is still the truth: Canada is boring always has been and always will be. Whenever I hear a Canadian mocking American ignorance about Canada, I always cant help picturing some deadbeat loser and unaccomplished writer who keeps all of
[news] Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War
Title: Message Don't Miss: "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War" Click here to visit the documentary website http://www.truthuncovered.com/
[news] Another Vision of Iraq
Title: Message Another Vision of IraqPublished: May 6, 2004 iven the almost uniformly disastrous news coming out of Iraq lately, a presidential challenger might have been tempted to mark last week's anniversary of President Bush's "mission accomplished" stunt with point-scoring sound bites. To his credit, Senator John Kerry instead offered ideas for rescuing American policy in Iraq from the rapidly deteriorating military and political situation. His handlers might wish that Mr. Kerry was better at one-liners, but we're happy to see a national figure offer a grounded, pragmatic vision of America's role in the world. Mr. Kerry's notions of how to persuade other countries to support the United States were a real contrast with President Bush's interviews yesterday with Arab television networks approved by the White House. In responding to Muslim rage over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, Mr. Bush sometimes sounded as if he was chiding angry Arabs for not appreciating the United States' good intentions. For months, Mr. Kerry has advocated broader international oversight of Iraq's prospective interim government, a formula that might open the door to additional peacekeeping contributions and generate some real support for nation-building there. Now he has begun to elaborate on how that oversight should be structured, drawing sensible lessons from successes and failures of the recent past. Mr. Kerry recognizes that the United Nations cannot offer any magic bullet solutions for Iraq, and that working with Secretary General Kofi Annan and his special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, cannot be a substitute for broad cooperation with all the major powers represented in the Security Council. To this end, while endorsing Mr. Brahimi's efforts to put together a transitional Iraqi government, Mr. Kerry also proposes designating an international high commissioner for Iraq whose office would be outside the barely functional, patronage-driven U.N. personnel system. That would permit the recruitment of a capable staff and create some safeguards against the kind of wholesale corruption that is alleged to have vitiated the U.N.'s oil-for-food program in Iraq. This feature of the Kerry proposal draws on the pattern of international oversight in Bosnia. While far from perfect, Bosnia's transition has worked out a lot better than Iraq's and elicited far wider international cooperation. Mr. Kerry also invokes the Bosnia example when he suggests that the NATO alliance be directly involved in Iraqi peacekeeping operations. That could help make NATO more relevant to the post-cold-war world and would ease the burden on America's badly strained military. An American commander would still be in overall charge of security. Mr. Kerry's ideas would have been difficult to put into effect a year ago. They would be extremely hard to carry out now, and impossible by next January, should he defeat Mr. Bush. But they at least reflect a realistic view of what the United Nations and the United States can and cannot do. The Bush administration, meanwhile, clings to the unworkable notion of an American-controlled transition, an idea that grows ever more out of touch with reality as the news of the revolting abuses at Abu Ghraib prison overwhelms any remaining Iraqi faith in Washington's good intentions.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/opinion/06THU1.html?ex=1084841844ei=1en=fbcfb46cce9b7a24
[news] Battlefield of Dreams
Title: Message OP-ED COLUMNIST Battlefield of DreamsBy PAUL KRUGMANPublished: May 4, 2004 ast November the top economist at the Heritage Foundation was very optimistic about Iraq, saying Paul Bremer had just replaced "Saddam's soak-the-rich tax system" with a flat tax. "Few Americans would want to trade places with the people of Iraq," wrote the economist, Daniel Mitchell. "But come tax time next April, they may begin to wonder who's better off." Even when he wrote that, the insurgency in Iraq was visibly boiling over; by "tax time" last month, the situation was truly desperate. Much has been written about the damage done by foreign policy ideologues who ignored the realities of Iraq, imagining that they could use the country to prove the truth of their military and political doctrines. Less has been said about how dreams of making Iraq a showpiece for free trade, supply-side tax policy and privatization dreams that were equally oblivious to the country's realities undermined the chances for a successful transition to democracy. A number of people, including Jay Garner, the first U.S. administrator of Iraq, think that the Bush administration shunned early elections, which might have given legitimacy to a transitional government, so it could impose economic policies that no elected Iraqi government would have approved. Indeed, over the past year the Coalition Provisional Authority has slashed tariffs, flattened taxes and thrown Iraqi industry wide open to foreign investors reinforcing the sense of many Iraqis that we came as occupiers, not liberators. But it's the reliance on private contractors to carry out tasks usually performed by government workers that has really come back to haunt us. Conservatives make a fetish out of privatization of government functions; after the 2002 elections, George Bush announced plans to privatize up to 850,000 federal jobs. At home, wary of a public backlash, he has moved slowly on that goal. But in Iraq, where there is little public or Congressional oversight, the administration has privatized everything in sight. For example, the Pentagon has a well-established procurement office for gasoline. In Iraq, however, that job was subcontracted to Halliburton. The U.S. government has many experts in economic development and reform. But in Iraq, economic planning has been subcontracted after a highly questionable bidding procedure to BearingPoint, a consulting firm with close ties to Jeb Bush. What's truly shocking in Iraq, however, is the privatization of purely military functions. For more than a decade, many noncritical jobs formerly done by soldiers have been handed to private contractors. When four Blackwater employees were killed and mutilated in Falluja, however, marking the start of a wider insurgency, it became clear that in Iraq the U.S. has extended privatization to core military functions. It's one thing to have civilians drive trucks and serve food; it's quite different to employ them as personal bodyguards to U.S. officials, as guards for U.S. government installations and the latest revelation as interrogators in Iraqi prisons. According to reports in a number of newspapers, employees from two private contractors, CACI International and Titan, act as interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to Sewell Chan of The Washington Post, these contractors are "at the center of the probe" into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. And that abuse, according to the senior defense analyst at Jane's, has "almost certainly destroyed much of what support the coalition had among the more moderate section of the Iraqi population." We don't yet know for sure that private contractors were at fault. But why put civilians, who cannot be court-martialed and hence aren't fully accountable, in that role? And why privatize key military functions? I don't think it's simply a practical matter. Although there are several thousand armed civilians working for the occupation, their numbers aren't large enough to make a significant dent in the troop shortage. I suspect that the purpose is to set a precedent. You may ask whether our leaders' drive to privatize reflects a sincere conservative ideology, or a desire to enrich their friends. Probably both. But before Iraq, privatization that rewarded campaign contributors was a politically smart move, even if it was a net loss for the taxpayers. In Iraq, however, reality does matter. And thanks to the ideologues who dictated our policy over the past year, reality looks pretty grim.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/04/opinion/04KRUG.html
[news] A War for Us, Fought by Them
Title: Message OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR A War for Us, Fought by ThemBy WILLIAM BROYLES Jr.Published: May 4, 2004 ILSON, Wyo. The longest love affair of my life began with a shotgun marriage. It was the height of the Vietnam War and my student deferment had run out. Desperate not to endanger myself or to interrupt my personal plans, I wanted to avoid military service altogether. I didn't have the resourcefulness of Bill Clinton, so I couldn't figure out how to dodge the draft. I tried to escape into the National Guard, where I would be guaranteed not to be sent to war, but I lacked the connections of George W. Bush, so I couldn't slip ahead of the long waiting list. My attitude was the same as Dick Cheney's: I was special, I had "other priorities." Let other people do it. When my draft notice came in 1968, I was relieved in a way. Although I had deep doubts about the war, I had become troubled about how I had angled to avoid military service. My classmates from high school were in the war; my classmates from college were not exactly the dynamic that exists today. But instead of reporting for service in the Army, on a whim I joined the Marine Corps, the last place on earth I thought I belonged. My sacrifice turned out to be minimal. I survived a year as an infantry lieutenant in Vietnam. I was not wounded; nor did I struggle for years with post-traumatic stress disorder. A long bout of survivor guilt was the price I paid. Others suffered far more, particularly those who had to serve after the war had lost all sense of purpose for the men fighting it. I like to think that in spite of my being so unwilling at first, I did some small service to my country and to that enduring love of mine, the United States Marine Corps. To my profound surprise, the Marines did a far greater service to me. In three years I learned more about standards, commitment and yes, life, than I did in six years of university. I also learned that I had had no idea of my own limits: when I was exhausted after humping up and down jungle mountains in 100-degree heat with a 75-pound pack, terrified out of my mind, wanting only to quit, convinced I couldn't take another step, I found that in fact I could keep going for miles. And my life was put in the hands of young men I would otherwise never have met, by and large high-school dropouts, who turned out to be among the finest people I have ever known. I am now the father of a young man who has far more character than I ever had. I joined the Marines because I had to; he signed up after college because he felt he ought to. He volunteered for an elite unit and has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. When I see images of Americans in the war zones, I think of my son and his friends, many of whom I have come to know and deeply respect. When I opened this newspaper yesterday and read the front-page headline, "9 G.I.'s Killed," I didn't think in abstractions. I thought very personally. The problem is, I don't see the images of or read about any of the young men and women who, as Dick Cheney and I did, have "other priorities." There are no immediate family members of any of the prime civilian planners of this war serving in it beginning with President Bush and extending deep into the Defense Department. Only one of the 535 members of Congress, Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota, has a child in the war and only half a dozen others have sons and daughters in the military. The memorial service yesterday for Pat Tillman, the football star killed in Afghanistan, further points out this contrast. He remains the only professional athlete of any sport who left his privileged life during this war and turned in his play uniform for a real one. With few exceptions, the only men and women in military service are the profoundly patriotic or the economically needy. It was not always so. In other wars, the men and women in charge made sure their family members led the way. Since 9/11, the war on terrorism has often been compared to the generational challenge of Pearl Harbor; but Franklin D. Roosevelt's sons all enlisted soon after that attack. Both of Lyndon B. Johnson's sons-in-law served in Vietnam. This is less a matter of politics than privilege. The Democratic elites have not responded more nobly than have the Republican; it's just that the Democrats' hypocrisy is less acute. Our president's own family illustrates the loss of the sense of responsibility that once went with privilege. In three generations the Bushes have gone from war hero in World War II, to war evader in Vietnam, to none of the extended family showing up in Iraq and Afghanistan.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/04/opinion/04BROY.html
[news] The Fire Still Burns
http://www2.ari.net/bsabath/950711.html The Fire Still Burns An interview with historian Gar Alperovitz When Gar Alperovitz's first book, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam, was originally published in 1965, it challenged conventional thinking about the United States' decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Since then Alperovitz has become a leading expert on the factors and decision-making process around the use of nuclear weapons. An updated edition of Atomic Diplomacy was published by Pluto Press to mark the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (Alfred A. Knopf), his latest book, will be released in August. Gar Alperovitz is president of the National Center for Economic Alternatives and a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. He was interviewed in Washington in May by Sojourners' Jim Rice and Aaron Gallegos. -The Editors Sojourners: You've been involved in this issue for a long time. How did you first begin to look into the decision to use the bomb? Gar Alperovitz: I was not planning to do a book on the atomic bomb. In the late 1950s, I was starting research on my Ph.D. thesis on how U.S. plans for shaping the post-World War II economic order and how U.S. officials thought about this during the war. I entered through this back door of looking at early Cold War issues and the role of the bomb in shaping U.S. diplomatic strategy, not why they dropped the bomb. Sojourners: What's the consensus among experts about the decision to bomb Hiroshima? Was it necessary to use the bomb to forestall an invasion of Japan? Alperovitz: The use of the atomic bomb, most experts now believe, was totally unnecessary. Even people who support the decision for various reasons acknowledge that almost certainly the Japanese would have surrendered before the initial invasion planned for November. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey stated that officially in 1946. We found a top-secret War Department study that said when the Russians came in, which was August 8, the war would have ended anyway. The invasion of Honshu, the main island, was not scheduled to take place until the spring of 1946. Almost all the U.S. military leaders are on record saying there were options for ending the war without an invasion. So minimally, as Hanson Baldwin, The New York Times writer, put it, if the goal of the bombing was to end the war without an invasion, that was unnecessary, so it was "a mistake." That's Baldwin's phrase. Now, did American policy-makers know this at the time? That's a slightly different question. Many scholars now believe that the president understood the war could be ended long before the November landing. J. Samuel Walker, a conservative, official government historian, states in his expert study, perhaps with slight exaggeration but not much, that the consensus of the scholarly studies is that the bomb was known at the time to be unnecessary. Sojourners: How do you explain the large gap between that consensus and the prevailing popular opinion, which is that the bombing was necessary to prevent the invasion? Alperovitz: The popular myth didn't just happen, it was created by several official acts, and by many things President Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson did. During the early postwar period, there was a slow growth of criticism of the bomb, including from the religious community and from some of the important radio spokespersons of the time. Many conservatives at that point, actually more than liberals, were raising serious questions about the bombing. The Calhoun Commission of liberal Protestant theologians for the Federal Council of Churches-Reinhold Niebuhr and John C. Bennett were members-criticized the bombing, both as unnecessary and as immoral, a sin demanding some sort of contrition. As the criticism grew, there was an organized, semi-official response to put it down. The argument was that the bomb was the least abhorrent choice we had available. The documents available show that isn't true-but it was an extraordinarily successful propaganda effort. They wanted to close down the debate for several reasons. One was to protect the president. Two, it was the beginning of the Cold War period, and they wanted no one tampering with the moral importance of nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons build-up was going on, and they saw it as necessary to fight against communism. Any undercutting of the moral legitimacy of nuclear weapons might undercut the fight against communism. Besides, they had reputations to protect-they were all involved. Sojourners: Wouldn't Japan have been more inclined to surrender if we had guaranteed they could retain their emperor? What was preventing the United States from doing this? Alperovitz: The real decision to use the atomic bomb was the decision not to give the Japanese another way to surrender. The
[news] A Great Canadian
Greetings , Friends, As you might have heard and seen, the CBC has launched a contest to nominate A Great Canadian (or The Greatest Canadian). The 10 top winners of the contest will have a CBC documentary made of them. Would it not be great to have a documentary made of David Orchard's work over the years to fight for our sovereignty, our environment and democracy!This is where you come in! As this is a numbers game, let us make our votes count to nominate David Orchard as a Great Canadian!You can do it by calling 1-866-303-VOTE (8683) AND you can also nominate through the Great Canadian web page at: http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/ See the rules at http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/rules/index.html, and remember that the nominations close on the 16th of May.Furthermore, you can call in your nomination to a national open line show, CBC's Cross Country Checkup, TOMORROW, SUNDAY, MAY 9TH, and although the blurb says "greatest Canadian of all time", don't be deterred by it. "Great" is good enough!Below is the description from the Cross Country Checkup: Listen this Sunday to Cross Country Checkup, when Rex Murphy hosts a live, national call-in programme to explore the question "who do you think is the greatest Canadian of all time, and why?". CBC Radio One and on the Country Canada channel Sunday, May 9 at 5 p.m. AT / 5:30 NT/ 4 p.m. ET/ 3 p.m. CT/ 2 p.m. MT / 1 p.m. PT."Think of the one person who rises above the rest and deserves to be named The Greatest Canadian. Submit your nomination through this website, or call our toll-free phone line at 1-866-303-VOTE (8683). You can make one nomination per address, so make it count. Be sure to send us your pick by May 16, when the nomination period closes."You can listen to the programme via the internet at: http://www.cbc.ca/checkup/audio.htmlLet us hope that some of us will get through to the programme, with a "good word" for the deserving David Orchard!Marjaleena==DAVID ORCHARD CAMPAIGN FOR CANADAP.O. Box 1983, Saskatoon, S7K 3S5tel: (306) 664-8443 fax: (306) 244-37901-877-WE STAND (937-8263)[EMAIL PROTECTED]website: www.davidorchard.com== mapleleaf.jpg
[news] America and Its Moral Superiority Complex
Title: Message America and Its Moral Superiority Complex By Patrick Jarreau Le Monde Friday 07 May 2003 The humiliations and tortures inflicted by American soldiers on Iraqi detainees in a prison close to Baghdad force America, once again, to face the contrast between the moral superiority to which it lays claim and the violence that it produces. The spectacle of the treatment which American soldiers inflicted on prisoners who were "at their mercy", as Colin Powell emphasized, bears a terrible contradiction to the good intentions George Bush constantly puts forward to justify his policies. Without being naive or attempting to outbid American morality, what happened inside Abou Ghraib prison, and, most probably, elsewhere, has nothing to do with fear or panic responses of soldiers in a hostile milieu. Colin Powell, once again, brought up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam to emphasize precisely the difference between the two situations. The scenes in the prison, photographed by the soldiers themselves, bear witness to a gratuitous, sadistic cruelty. The debate about words is not a strictly formal or secondary issue. Always erudite, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was anxious to make a distinction between what the American calls "abuse", and torture. It's true that torture in its strict sense is the act of inflicting unbearable pain on someone to force them to hand over information they are suspected to possess. It has not yet been proven - even if it is, unfortunately, probable - that the Abou Ghraib prisoners were subjected to those kinds of treatment. It appears that the American specialists' interrogation methods are based, rather, on fear and humiliation. The interrogators and their assistants in the military police create a climate of terror, in which prisoners are led to believe that their jailers are allowed to do anything and that anything could happen to them. Degrading acts obey the same logic. There again, it's a question of demonstrating that anything is possible, that human respect does not obtain, that the detainee has lost the elementary right to dignity. However, if these techniques of manipulation avoid torture strictly speaking, they no less reveal the identical logic of coercion. What the photos show, however, is of yet another order. Whether or not they received instructions from their superiors, whether or not they behaved in conformity with "technical" directives, whether or not their conduct's final objective was to get the prisoners to talk, these soldiers took pleasure in what they were doing. They found it so entertaining that they took photos of it for their souvenir albums. To force men to undress, to pile them up on each other, to practice or to simulate sexual acts derives from a violence which, if different from torture, is no less unbearable. What these photos show is that ordinary Americans, young students, men and women, married women or fathers of families, are ready to strip men of their humanity because they suspect them of being terrorists or enemies, because they're different, because they're Arabs, because they're defeated. These photos send back to America an image of itself that clashes with its pretensions to incarnate good in the war against evil. George Bush has systematically used this rhetoric, in January 2002, adapting Ronald Reagan's formula for the Soviet Union - "the Evil Empire" - to denounce "the Axis of Evil", which, according to him, comprised Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. While terrorists kill blindly, he has often repeated, Americans are essentially "a good people", "decent", respectful of others, and anxious to see the whole world profit from the benefits of freedom, which is "a gift from God to men". Suspected ever since the opening of the camp at Guantanamo Bay on a naval base the United States occupies in Cuba, a different reality has come to light. The conservative Right, from which Mr. Bush draws his support, is not ready to acknowledge this reality. One of its most influential spokesmen, Rush Limbaugh, whose radio program is listened to every day by 20 million Americans, talked about what the photos, eye witnesses, and reports revealed as simple hazing. Reserving his compassion for the soldiers in question, he compared their acts to what happens during "initiations" practiced by certain university fraternities. "They're going to be destroyed because they had a good time;" he waxed indignant, asserting that "these people - who get shot at every day" have a right to "blow off some steam." Confession of Failure The White House spokesman took care to distinguish himself from Rush Limbaugh, although his audience can't be neglected and although Vice President, Richard Cheney, ordinarily smothers him with kindness. Mr. Bush's spokesman pointed out that on the subject of the prisoners' treatment, Mr. Bush had expressed a point of view very different from that of the Right's
