Archive November 2005

30 November, 2005

How Europe Is Choking Itself -And The World
By Stephen Castle

Europe's claim to the moral high ground over the environment has been comprehensively challenged in a devastating report on its failings in the battle against global warming and pollution. It says Europe is devouring the world's natural resources at twice the global rate

No One Is Immune From
The Effects Of Global Warming
By Steve Connor

None of us in this global village of the 21st century is going to be immune from the effects of climate change. This is the basic message of the European Environment Agency, whose latest report says that changes to the continent's climate that have been experienced to date have not been matched in the past several thousand years

Impact Of Climate Change 'Can Be Likened To WMD'
By Steve Connor

Climate change can be likened in its destructive scale to the effects of using weapons of mass destruction, according to Britain's leading scientist

Pneumonia Cases Rocket In Pakistan Quake Zone
By Abu Arqam Naqash

Hundreds of people, most of them children, have contracted pneumonia in Pakistan's earthquake-stricken zone as harsh winter weather sets in

Oil: Too Valuable To Burn
By Stephen E. Fleischman

War is the greatest despoiler of the environment and depletor of petroleum products. Imagine how much hi-octane aviation gasoline it takes to fly one bomber to drop one bomb on Baghdad, say from a base in Diego Garcia in the Indian ocean; then multiply that by “shock and awe” and take the square root of the thousands of Humvees and Abrams and Sherman tanks and troop carriers that need to be supplied each day times 365 days times 3 years

Hospitals Come Under Siege
By Dahr Jamail and Harb Al-Mukhtar

Hospital personnel are reporting regular raids and interference by the U.S. military as fighting continues in the volatile Al-Anbar province of Iraq

27 November, 2005

Peak Oil: What We Know Now
By Bill Henderson

The momentous challenge facing the Bush Administration and America is the very real danger to the continuing supply of America's very lifeblood: oil

The Nepal Pact
By Gary Leupp

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has in the last week signed a pact with the alliance of seven parliamentary parties that have united in opposition to King Gyanendra and his dictatorial regime

Violence Against Occupation Opponents
Continues In Lead-Up To Iraq Election
By James Cogan

In contrast to Washington’s propaganda that a stable democracy is emerging in Iraq, a campaign of terror and intimidation is continuing against opponents of the US occupation in the weeks leading up to the December 15 election

Exploring Past And Future Of Madrasas In India
By V.B.Rawat

Yoginder Sikand's Bastation of Believers: Madrasas and Islamic Education in India published by Penguin Books reveals hitherto unknown facts about Madrasas

Bordering Autonomy
By Remi Kanazi

Last week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brokered a deal between Israelis and Palestinians on the Rafah border crossing which connects the "disengaged" Gaza Strip with the outside world

26 November, 2005

A News Revolution Has Begun
By John Pilger

The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an "insurrection of subjugated knowledge." The insurrection is well under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of people are turning away from the traditional sources of news and information and to the World Wide Web, convinced that mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power

Thanksgiving At Camp Casey
By Leigh Saavedra

In the three months since we fought the heat and crowds, watching a bit of history being made by the presence of Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, Texas, a lot has changed

Hunger Is Africa's Natural Disaster
By Carolyn Gibb Vogel

Widely known for being falsely accused by the Bush administration of selling uranium to Iraq to build the notoriously non-existent weapons of mass destruction, Niger is facing a genuine scandal. One-quarter of its population is facing a yearly food shortage and the government is in denial about the alarming situation

Another Checkpoint On The Road To Nowhere
By Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah

One constant in the long conflict over Palestine is that Israel and its backers always have an excuse to avoid the central issues that prevent peace. Israel is adapt at creating complications which then absorb and exhaust all available diplomatic and political energy, while it uses the time to entrench itself ever more deeply in the occupied territories

The End Of Justice In Australia
By Ghali Hassan

The right-wing government of John Howard proposes to introduce through Federal Parliament a draconian anti-terror legislation, the Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005. If passed, the Bill would make it easy for the government and the police to arrest and detain without charge Australians from Muslim and Arab backgrounds on suspicion of planning to commit act of terrorism

25 November, 2005

Can "Tipping Points" Accelerate Global Warming?
By Alister Doyle

Rising temperatures trigger a runaway melt of Greenland's ice sheet, raising sea levels and drowning Pacific islands and cities from New York to Tokyo

Pacific Atlantis: First Climate Change Refugees
By John Vidal

For more than 30 years the 980 people living on the six minute horseshoe-shaped Carteret atolls have battled the Pacific to stop salt water destroying their coconut palms and waves crashing over their houses. They failed. Yesterday a decision was made that will make their group of low-lying islands literally go down in history

Accelerated Rise In Sea Levels Blamed
On Global Warming
By Steve Connor

Sea levels are rising twice as fast as they were 150 years ago and man-made greenhouse emissions are the prime cause, a study by scientists in America has found

Assassinations...
By Baghdad Burning

Whoever is behind the assassinations, Iraq is quickly losing its educated people. More and more doctors and professors are moving to leave the country

Life Goes On In Fallujah's Rubble
By Dahr Jamail

A year after the U.S.-led "Operation Phantom Fury" damaged or destroyed 36,000 homes, 60 schools and 65 mosques in Fallujah, Iraq, residents inside the city continue to suffer from lack of compensation, slow reconstruction and high rates of illness

Thanks Giving For Katrina Victims
By Tatsha Robertson

Many Katrina victims stranded far away from a family holiday

24 November, 2005

Pakistan Earthquake:A Tragedy The World Forgot
By Arifa Akbar and Terry Kirby

Six weeks after the massive earthquake that devastated parts of Pakistan, the United Nations and relief agencies are racing against time to avert a horrendous, avoidable humanitarian tragedy

U.S. Racing The Clock To Find Alternate Fuels
By Greg Gordon

Former CIA Director James Woolsey paints a dire scenario: A terrorist attack causes a months-long, 6 million-barrel reduction in Saudi Arabia's daily petroleum output, sending the price of oil skyrocketing past $100 a barrel

Scholars Threatened By Australian Anti-Terror Laws
By Gideon Polya

Right-wing political and media hysteria over a “terror threat” to Australia has led to installation of draconian Anti-Terrorism Laws with even stronger laws set to be passed before Christmas 2005

Roots of Violence
By Ram Puniyani

The violence in France has been sparked off by the death of two youth. The way the violence is spreading it seems as if the pent up frustration has found an outlet. Deprivation, Alienation, not Polygamy is the cause

America's Corporatocracy Says "No MAS"
By Jason Miller

Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez are friends to the majority of Americans, and to most of humanity. Each step of success for the Bolivarian Revolution will be a step in the evolution of humanity toward the fulfillment of the teachings and dreams of Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and other great spiritual leaders throughout human history

22 November, 2005

Iraq's Oil: The Spoils Of War
By Philip Thornton

Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year

Behind The Phosphorus Clouds
By George Monbiot

We now know the US also used thermobaric weapons in its assault on Falluja, where up to 50,000 civilians remained

Yosfiya: The 21st Century Nazis Are Here
By Abah Ali

All Yosfiya men do not sleep in their houses, no matter if they were young, old, armed, or have nothing to do with the resistance; because the police arrest any men around. Women are left alone to face the situation

Global Warming Hits Himalayas
By Robin McKie

The roof of the world is changing. Almost 95 per cent of Himalayan glaciers are shrinking - and that kind of ice loss has profound implications, not just for Nepal and Bhutan, but for surrounding nations, including China, India and Pakistan

18 November, 2005

France: An Uprising Of The Poor
By Jim Wolfreys

The events in France over the last three weeks are more than a riot — they are an urban uprising on a scale not seen in Western Europe since the Second World War

Riots In France - Lessons For India
By Sambaiah Gundimeda

After a gap of 216 years since the French Revolution, the high drama is being re-enacted with the same theme: extravaganza vs. deprivation

The Day America Died
By Doug Soderstrom

Whatever turns out to be the exact sequence of events in the inevitable downfall of the Bush-Cheney administration, far more significant will be the fact that the American republic, as we once knew it, will have ceased to exist

Bobcats In A Brave New World
By Sheila Samples

Since defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and vice president Dick Cheney teamed up to lead the charge to create a New World Order, the whole universe has become untidy. Very untidy. My friend Bernie says Dick and Rummy's big plan to take over the world by waging continuous war is kinda like baptizing a bobcat -- ain't gonna happen

House Of Horrors...
By Baghdad Burning

The talk of the town is the torture house they recently found in Jadriya

Open Letter To George's Mama
By Cindy Sheehan

Your son's amazingly ignorant, arrogant, and reckless policies in Iraq are responsible for so much sorrow and trouble in this world. Can you make him stop? Do it before more mothers' lives are needlessly and cruelly harmed. There have been too many worldwide already

An Unnatural Disaster
By Emma Dixon

Katrina revealed the racial wealth divide in New Orleans and the unnatural disaster that caused it. When will we rebuild our society so that everyone, regardless of race, has the means to escape the next disaster?

17 November, 2005

Conventional Terror In Iraq
By Baghdad Burning

This war has redefined ‘conventional’. It has taken atrocity to another level. Everything we learned before has become obsolete. ‘Conventional’ has become synonymous with horrifying. Conventional weapons are those that eat away the skin in a white blaze; conventional interrogation methods are like those practiced in Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons… Quite simply… conventional terror

US Admits Using White Phosphorous In Falluja
By Jamie Wilson

US forces yesterday made their clearest admission yet that white phosphorus was used as a weapon against insurgents in Iraq. A Pentagon spokesman told the BBC last night that it had been used as "an incendiary weapon" during the assault last year on Falluja in 2004

Thrill Of The Kill: The Other Tragedy In Iraq
By Julia Baird

Books by former soldiers, and journalists embedded with them, about the poorly planned and erratically fought war in Iraq are starting to shoot off the presses now: telling us how the soldiers have been driven mad by boredom, are desperately worried their girlfriends will stray, and thirst to kill

Evidence Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars
By Bill Christison

Bush seems to be moving deliberately and rapidly toward new wars of aggression in an unforgivable gamble to overcome his troubles. His speech on Veterans' Day leads to this conclusion more clearly than any of his previous speeches and activities

A Hero Of Guantánamo
By Victoria Brittain

As the Camp Delta hunger strikers grow weaker, the US Senate is denying them justice

Climate Change Map Reveals Countries
Most Under Threat
By Steve Connor

Scientists have compiled one of the first comprehensive pictures of what the world might be like when climate change begins to trigger a dramatic increase in epidemics, disease and death

American Christian Fundamentalist Leader
Calls For Global War
By Yoginder Sikand

If Christian fundamentalists are to be believed, America's invasion of Iraq and the consequent brutal slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians in that country are all part of a grand divine plan that will finally culminate in the 'second coming' of Jesus Christ

Eerily Familiar News From "Down Under"
By Tony Ryan

A news letter from Australia

Making Of A Terrorist
By Ram Puniyani

One shudders to think of the times to come. The global phenomenon to give boost to the US designs for controlling the middle-east oil resources is overtly visible. Once the identity of terrorism with Islam got established, courtesy the CIA run training camps in Pakistan, now the job is comparatively easy for the World emperor. Any where, the dispute can take the shape of terror; the politics has already put on the veneer of religious identity

16 November, 2005

The Politics Of Climate Change
By Andrew Lam

The glaciers are melting and receding. The sea rises to swallow islands and low-lying nations. Factories spew toxic chemicals into rivers and oceans, killing fish and the livelihoods of generations. Where the forest used to be, rains cause the bare hills to slide down onto homes. And the hurricanes keep on coming and coming

I Treated People Who Had Their Skin Melted'
By Dahr Jamail

As an unembedded journalist, I spent hours talking to residents forced out of the city. A doctor from Fallujah working in Saqlawiyah, on the outskirts of Fallujah, described treating victims during the siege "who had their skin melted"

Iran - A Threat To The Petrodollar?
By Emilie Rutledge

Iran's decision to set up an oil and associated derivatives market next year has generated a great deal of interest. This is primarily because of Iran's reported intention to invoice energy contracts in euros rather than dollars

Arafat The Obstacle Has Been Exposed As A Myth
By Karma Nabulsi

The Palestinian leader's portrayal by the west and Israel has been a barrier both to understanding the conflict and to peac

New Orleans, Two Months Later
By Tom Andre

None of us want to live in a country that allows something like Katrina to happen. We may very well have lost the soul of a great American city, and it was preventable. I think we might have all lost a bit of ourselves, too: this is America, and it did happen here

Secret CIA Testimony Undermines Bush, Again
By Jason Leopold

In 2001, Tenet said Iraq posed no threat

The Corporate Media’s Threat To Freedom
By Mike Whitney

The multi-headed dragon of corporate media must be confronted and defeated. Al Qaida may pose a threat to our security, but the alliance of state and media poses a clear and present danger to our freedom

15 November, 2005

The US Used Chemical Weapons In Iraq
By George Monbiot

Now we know napalm and phosphorus bombs have been dropped on Iraqis, why have the hawks failed to speak out?

Film Documents American Use Of
Chemical Weapons In Iraq
By Rick Kelly

The Italian state television network, RAI, has broadcast a documentary that contains footage and testimony proving that the American military has used chemical weapons in Iraq, including in civilian areas

Fallujah Revisited
By Dahr Jamail

Nearly a year after they occurred, a few of the war crimes committed in Fallujah by members of the US military have gained the attention of some major media outlets

Torture’s Out. Now They Call It Abuse
By Robert Fisk

American journalists now refer to "abuse laws" rather than torture laws. Yes, abuse sounds so much better, doesn’t it? No screaming, no cries of agony when you’re abused

Movies And Dreams...
By Baghdad Burning

The Puppets the Americans empowered are advocates of every dream except the Iraqi one: The dream of Iraqi Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen… the dream of a united, stable, prosperous Iraq which has, over the last two years, gone up in the smoke of car bombs, military raids and a foreign occupation

Evolution, Ecology And 'Malignant Design'
By Noam Chomsky

Perhaps only the word "malignant" could describe a failure to acknowledge, much less address, the all-too-scientific issue of climate change. Thus, the "moral clarity" of the Bush administration extends to its cavalier attitude toward the fate of our grandchildren

Australian Anti-Terror Laws Target Muslims,
Media & Free Speech
By Gideon Polya

Within several weeks Australia, one of the world’s oldest liberal democracies, is expected to become a Police State through enactment of draconian, human rights-violating Anti-Terror Laws

A Tribute To K R Narayanan
By V.B.Rawat

In K.R.Narayanan's death, India has lost a statesmen. His contribution to Indian polity and Indian nation will always be remembered by all those who want to see India for all and not for a few upper caste elite with parochial politico-religious mindset

Dalits At High Risk Of Torture In Nepal
By CHRGJ

Dalits are at high risk of torture in Nepal, warned the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. Dalits have been targeted by both Maoists and government security forces

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