By Sanjay Suri

BONN, May 31 (IPS) Tbilisi in Georgia, Guerrero state in Mexico and Bonn in Germany are beginning to find a common sweeping through the cities.

No, they have not all begun to turn wind to power, or power themselves off sunshine, but they have at last begun to move the same way, with some renewed energy. (more…)

Among ruined houses, a haven for Gaza’s children lies in rubble

Chris McGreal in al-Brazil, Rafah

The Guardian

Ask to be directed to the latest wave of Israeli destruction in Rafah’s al-Brazil neighbourhood and many fingers point towards the zoo. Amid the rubble of dozens of homes that the Israeli army continued yesterday to deny demolishing, the wrecking of the tiny, but only, zoo in the Gaza Strip took on potent symbolism for many of the newly homeless. (more…)

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, May (IPS) - The mantra that market reforms would pull the least developed countries out of poverty collapsed under major new findings by UNCTAD presented in London Thursday.

The 50 least developed countries (LDCs) increased gross national income (GNI) and export growth but poverty levels within the countries have also risen, or at least not declined, says the report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). (more…)

For all The Grand Rhetoric,
We Have Failed to See Through our Mission in Afghanistan
Independent UK | Editorial

May 2004

Two years ago, following the removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Tony Blair promised that the international community would not ignore the plight of the Afghan people, that “this time we will not walk away". We may not have quite walked away yet, but we have undoubtedly turned away - to Iraq. And now our Prime Minister is spraying around pledges with equal conviction that we will “stay the course” there. But life in Afghanistan today is just as cheap as it was under the Taliban and, for all Mr. Blair’s promises, it remains a lawless, impoverished state. The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee will warn in July that our failure to rebuild post-war Afghanistan could be repeated in Iraq. (more…)

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, May (IPS) - When the U.S. state department shyly released a human rights report two weeks ago amidst an international outcry over U.S. soldiers’ abuse of Iraqi prisoners, it slipped in some tough talk on media freedom – against the practice, not for it as would be expected.

Lorne Craner, deputy assistant secretary for democracy and human rights, told reporters that Arab TV network AlJazeera was inciting violence against U.S. troops in occupied Iraq. (more…)

By Hugo Chavez

CARACAS, Venezuela – For the first 24 hours of the coup d’etat that briefly overthrew my government on April 11, 2002, I expected to be executed at any moment.

The coup leaders told Venezuela and the world that I hadn’t been overthrown but rather had resigned. I expected that my captors would soon shoot me in the head and call it a suicide.

Instead, something extraordinary happened. The truth about the coup got out, and millions of Venezuelans took to the streets. Their protests emboldened the pro-democracy forces in the military to put down the brief dictatorship, led by Venezuelan business leader Pedro Carmona. (more…)

by Justin Raimondo

Isn’t it funny how politicians have to wait until just before going into retirement to say what they really think about Israel and its influence over Washington policymakers?

Congressman Lee Hamilton (D-Illinois), formerly the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, waited until after announcing his departure from Congress to attend a symposium on the Middle East where he noted that his congressional colleagues are “not even-handed” when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “for political reasons.” Rep. Hamilton went on to say:

“Israeli leaders understand our system very, very well [and] because they understand our system they can exploit it.” (more…)

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, May (IPS) - As the clock ticks closer to the deadline for introducing a new constitution in Kenya, Atsango Chesoni ­ for one ­ is filled with anticipation at the coming change.

The women’s rights activist and official at Bomas Katiba Watch says the country’s existing constitution discriminates against women, especially on the issue of property rights ­ and that change in this matter is long overdue. ("Katiba” is the Swahili word for constitution, while Bomas refers to the venue on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where constitutional negotiations took place.) (more…)

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.

It’s 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. origin—depleted uranium (DU). (more…)

Nabil Sultan

SANA’A, Yemen, May (IPS) - There is much talk of terrorism, and little talking to them. But a bold move in Yemen to open a dialogue with branded terrorists is bringing unexpected results.

The dialogue has been initiated by the Theological Dialogue Committee set up by the Yemeni government to talk to al-Qaeda suspects and militants who have returned from Jihad in Afghanistan. Many of these have been in prison up to three years. (more…)

Leonardo Boff, theologian

Mel Gibson’s movie, Passion of Christ, should not leave the impression that only Jesus carried the cross and was subjected to the worst torments. His passion is inscribed deep inside the painful suffering of the world and its most profound sense is to be found in His solidarity with all the crucified of history. There is a mysterious passion of the world that defies all efforts to understand it. The evolutionary process, especially in the realm of life, is stigmatized by countless suffering. At the human level, suffering can reach savage proportions. Suffering is always with us in every thing we do, even in our successes. The elders left us this phrase: “Life does not give a thing to mortals, at least they work hard for it!” That clearly implies considerable sacrifices. In fact, all of us carry a cross either on our shoulders or in our heart. Some times the cross of our heart bleeds more than the cross we carry on our shoulders. That is the cross that was also felt by Jesus when, in a paroxysm of pain, high on the cross, he shouted the desperate cry: “My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me!?” St. John of the Cross, author of Dark Night of The Soul, calls this cross: a terrible and dreadful night of the spirit. It is so, because it attacks the last human resource: hope. Jesus passed through this terrible, interior cross of the soul in His last loneliness, but He did not succumb to it because His last words were: “Father, Into Thy Hands I Commend My Spirit.” (more…)

Ties More Tense, Vulnerable after Summit

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, May (IPS) - Frosty bilateral relations are supposed to have thawed a bit after the weekend summit between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, but ties also appear to be on a more tense and vulnerable footing now, say analysts here.

Five children of Japanese who were released from North Korea during the first dramatic summit in October 2002 did return to Japan with Koizumi after the May 22 meeting. He had earlier promised to bring back three other family members. (more…)

As Rice and Clarke battle, the complex job of fixing America’s tangled intelligence capabilities is fading away

Peter Morgan / Reuters file

A view of Ground Zero in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001.
By Michael Moran
Senior correspondent
MSNBC

In May of 2001, one of the very few public figures who genuinely raised a warning about the threat al-Qaida and other terrorist groups pose to America won an audience with the new vice president, Dick Cheney. The public figure was a Republican stalwart, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, head of an obscure commission that had just issued a report six months earlier, “Toward a National Strategy for Combating Terrorism.â€? (more…)

By Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, May 21 (IPS) - A delegation from the All Africa Conference of Churches has thrown its weight behind efforts to address the humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s western Darfur province, created by what some describe as a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

This comes after a week-long trip to the country by a delegation from the church grouping (or AACC). After visiting Sudan from May 11 to 16, the organisation also called for an investigation of human rights atrocities in Darfur. (more…)

By Marty Logan

UNITED NATIONS, May 20 (IPS) - The 2004 session of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has demonstrated again how far the planet’s native peoples and World Bank officials must still travel before they become full allies in development.

While representatives of the two groups sat together during the past two weeks in various meetings and discussions, the results were often mixed. (more…)

Ferry Biedermann

Militants are beginning to pay a price for resisting the “new reality” Israel is pushing to create in Gaza.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip, May 19 (IPS) - The Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah bore the brunt of the large-scale operation the Israeli army launched Tuesday after suffering severe losses last week. Streets leading into the neighbourhood were blocked by tanks and sand hills, local residents said.

The incursion started after midnight with a missile strike on Block O in Rafah where Islamic Jihad blew up an Israeli armoured personnel carrier last week. But later in the night the army surprisingly concentrated its actions on Tel al- Sultan, a neighbourhood that does not border with Egypt. (more…)

by Linda Burnham; War Times; May 2004

Sexual Domination in Uniform: An American Value

The Abu Ghraib portraits of sexual humiliation and submission have exposed the unbelievably tangled strands of racism, misogyny, homophobia, national arrogance and hyper-masculinity that characterize the U.S. military. Militarized sexual domination is neither “contrary to American values” nor simply the work of a few “bad apples.” It is, rather, a daily practice.

The “bad apples” defense is both unspeakably inadequate and completely disingenuous. (more…)

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, May (IPS) - In the run-up to Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian’s inauguration on May 20, Beijing has taken pre-emptive steps to discredit his oath of office and assert its claims of future reunification with the island.

In an ultimatum released on the weekend, four days before Chen Shui-bian is expected to deliver his inauguration speech, Beijing warned ‘’Taiwan leaders'’ to make their choice carefully or the ‘’Chinese people will crush their schemes firmly and thoroughly at any cost'’. (more…)

By: Modesto Emilio Guerrero - Venezuelanalysis.com

More than one thousand Argentineans welcomed the Venezuelan tanker carrying fuel to help mitigate the energy crisis in the austral country.

Buenos Aires, May 12, 2004 (Venezuelanalysis.com)-On Tuesday, in a cold but sunny day of the austral fall, a Venezuelan super tanker arrived on dock E of the almost bicentennial port of Buenos Aires with a shipment of 327,717 barrels of fuel oil to help ease Argentina’s energy crisis. (more…)

by Aaron Kipnis (650 words)

American mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners reveals more about the state of American domestic justice today than it does to chronicle casualties of our latest foreign war. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently called the abuse at Abu Ghraib “fundamentally un-American.” Secretary of State Colin Powell categorized the acts as “illegal against all standards,â€? while President Bush agreed that the abuse is “an affront to the most basic standards of morality and decency.” (more…)

Group Wants Intervention Timetable for Sudan’s Darfur

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May (IPS) - The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) and the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) are the latest to urge the international community to act quickly to stop what Human Rights Watch (HRW) earlier this month called â€?ethnic cleansingâ€? against the African communities of Sudan’s Darfur region.

â€?Khartoum may be betting that the world is too preoccupied with Iraq to care what happens in Darfur,â€? said Gareth Evans, the former foreign minister of Australia who heads the ICG. â€?If Sudan ignores a (United Nations) Security Council resolution, the international community must be ready to show that this is not the case by providing the necessary political will and military resources to hold it comprehensively to account,â€? he added in a statement. (more…)

Boston Globe – Opinion

By Kerry Kennedy Cuomo and Michael Posner

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s surprise trip to Baghdad is the latest step in the Bush administration’s campaign to repair the damage done by the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In condemning these abuses, Rumsfeld has made it clear that they were “inconsistent with our values,” contrary to “teachings of the military,” and “un-American.” But more significant is what Rumsfeld has failed to say and the pledges he hasn’t made. (more…)

By Jacklynne Hobbs*

JOHANNESBURG, May (IPS) - When water affairs ministers from countries along the Nile met recently to discuss the fate of the river, Boutros Boutros-Ghali was not in the room with them. But the lingering memory of his comment that future wars would be fought over water probably was.

The former United Nations Secretary-General first made the remark in the 1980s. The notion of potential ‘water wars’ has also been explored in a book of the same title and in numerous reports. In addition, the phrase crops up repeatedly in articles that deal with water scarcity in Africa, and the possibility of conflict amongst communities desperate to ensure access to water. (more…)

By Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, May 15 (IPS) - After successfully running the gauntlet of a gruelling Indian election, the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi cleared one more hurdle to the prime ministership Saturday, when the victorious Congress party that she leads elected her for the coveted job.

During the election campaign, Gandhi’s candidature for the job was challenged on the grounds of her foreign birth. (more…)

‘Doesn’t it ring a (prison) bell’

From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib

By Alexander Zaitchik, CounterPunch

If the president wasn’t so forthright about his disinterest in the world, it would have been hard to believe him Wednesday when he said the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison “doesn’t represent the America I know.” But who can doubt him? To represent the America George W. Bush knows, there would have to be explosive snapshots of Iraqi detainees lounging by the Abu Ghraib pool, barbequing ribs and snorting primo Bolivian coke off empty cases of Coors Light. There would have to be shocking reports of prisoners with family members on the Iraqi Governing Council being handed sweetheart deals on professional sports franchises and energy firms. (more…)

Pavol Stracansky

BRATISLAVA, May (IPS) - Slovakia’s asylum system could be pushed to collapse and leave refugees at the mercy of people smugglers following the country’s entry into the EU, UN officials in Slovakia warn.

Slovakia, one of ten countries which joined the European Union (EU) May 1, has been identified as a transit point on one of the major refugee and people smuggling routes from Asia to western Europe. (more…)

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
The New Yorker

In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women?no accurate count is possible?were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits. (more…)

Julio Godoy

PARIS, May (IPS) - European officials seem agreed that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. and British forces rule the two countries out of an international peace initiative. But they stop short of considering a European policy independent of the United States.

At the least the pictures of abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners have further undermined the already weak European backing for the war and occupation. Earlier supporters of the United States are now in withdrawal mode. (more…)

Medals of Honor

By WESLEY K. CLARK
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

When John Kerry released his military records to the public last week, Americans learned a lot about Mr. Kerry’s exceptional service in Vietnam. They also learned a lot about the Republican attack machine.

The evaluations were uniformly glowing. One commander wrote that Mr. Kerry ranked among “the top few” in three categories: initiative, cooperation and personal behavior. Another commander wrote, “In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action, Lt. j.g. Kerry was unsurpassed.” The citation for Mr. Kerry’s Bronze Star praises his “calmness, professionalism and great personal courage under fire.” (more…)

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May (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.” (more…)

ANN MASON*

University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia

Colombia’s current democratic security policy aims to reestablish internal order and to protect the civilian population from the depredations of illegal, armed organizations, within a framework of rights and protections related to the rule of law. Although the government distinguishes its ‘get tough’ strategy, which has been developed within institutional parameters, from previous national security approaches, in which unchecked powers led to abuses against society, the actual policy content continues to privilege a conventional military approach to security problems. (more…)

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, May (IPS) - What is being seen as a conditional offer by the EU to drop subsidies for agricultural exports has been conditionally welcomed by independent organisations.

The European Union (EU) has offered to drop subsidies on these exports if other countries like the United States, Canada and Australia do the same.

Oxfam urged other WTO members to follow the EU’s example. (more…)

By NORM DIXON

Even while working people were still coming to terms with the shock of witnessing the unimaginable and traumatic collapse of the World Trade Center, top US officials were describing this mass murder of 3000 people as “an opportunity'’ recent books by government “insiders'’ and Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward have revealed.

As the country went into mourning, Bush’s war cabinet quickly began to coolly debate just how soon it could get away with shifting the enemy in its coming “war on terrorism'’ to Iraq, a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks. (more…)

By Mary Robinson

GENEVA, Jan (IPS) - I write as I travel to Davos, Switzerland, where business leaders, government representatives, and civil society actors gather for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. I am coming to Davos after having been in Mumbai, India, where, with thousands of other civil society activists, I participated in the World Social Forum. (more…)

U.S. soldiers walk through the halls of the Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad, Iraq, on Wednesday. Most of the allegations of U.S. military abuse of Iraqi prisoners are centered on Ab Ghraib,

NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 2:18 p.m. ET May 08, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq said Saturday the military will continue to operate the Abu Ghraib prison despite calls from some U.S. lawmakers to close it because of a scandal over the abuse of Iraqi inmates.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller’s comments come a day after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld extended his “deepest apologyâ€? to any prisoners abused by American military personnel, telling Congress that he accepted full responsibility for the shocking events. But he also warned that worse was yet to come. (more…)

Perhaps Not So Exceptional After All

Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 8 (IPS) - To understand the impact in the United States of the photos of U.S. military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners, it is necessary to recall what then-Secretary of State Elihu Root said in 1899, as the country first emerged as a global power in the Spanish-American War.

The American soldier, he said, is ‘’different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the world began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order and of peace and happiness'’, Root declared, capturing the spirit of historical inevitability and ‘’national greatness'’, as Theodore Roosevelt called it, that swept the country as it routed the forces of a decadent Spanish Empire from the Caribbean and the Pacific. (more…)

Rummy on the Rocks

Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 7 (IPS) - With the scandal over the abuse of prisoners in
U.S. military custody in Iraq still growing, the administration of
President George W Bush appears to be shaken to its very core.

While the immediate question is whether Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld could be sufficiently persuasive in Congressional testimony
scheduled Friday to survive the fast-spreading calls for his resignation,
the larger issue has abruptly become whether the U.S. occupation of Iraq,
for which the administration has just asked an additional 25 billion
dollars this year, is sustainable. (more…)

The Miami Herald’s Alfonso Chardy has finally caught up with what VHeadline.com has been reporting all along … in a report from San Antonio de Los Altos, the Herald correspondent headlines “Did you hear the one about…?” and then goes on to say that Chavez foes’ rumors are unsettling…

Well, of course they are, since they’re part of an opposition disinformation campaign seeking to discredit everything good that’s happening in Venezuela these days!

Chardy: A Cuban biological weapons laboratory is hidden somewhere in San Antonio de Los Altos, a favor by President Hugo Chavez to his good friend Fidel Castro. (more…)

Train Disaster Shows Marginal Change, Others Doubt it

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May (IPS) - A deadly train explosion in North Korea two weeks ago has come to be regarded as a moment to gauge hints of possible change in that tightly controlled, secretive country.

An U.N. official who was among the few foreigners permitted to visit the site of the Apr. 22 railway disaster revealed signs of openness that were often regarded as impossible under the Stalinist regime of President Kim Jong-il. (more…)

Two articles on Vieques’ contamination follow:

Cancer rate continues to be high in Vieques

By Laura Rivera Melendez of the Associated Press
SAN JUAN - The Vieques cancer index registry, with statistics updated
until the year 2000, revealed that newly reported cases in the island
municipality are 25% more likely to occur than in the Puerto Rican
mainland, announced on Thursday Health Secretary, Johnny Rullan.

Rullan, who is an epidemiologist, stated that in Vieques there are 40
new cases of cancer reported per year, one for every 250 residents. (more…)

By Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, May 5 (IPS) - The enlargement of the European Union could push
the bloc into a “major drugs crisis", a leading international drug policy think-tank
warns.

The Senlis Council, an international network that gathers expertise and
facilitates new initiatives on drug policy, says two major challenges threaten an
enlarged European Union (EU) – the possibility of a Europe-wide HIV epidemic,
and increased pressure of trafficking from central and southern Asia. (more…)

By ADAM LIPTAK

PHILADELPHIA, April - About 20 minutes into stock remarks in praise of
the Constitution, Justice Antonin Scalia paused. “Everything I’ve said up
to now,” he told a hotel ballroom full of lawyers here on Thursday, “has
been uncontroversial.”

What followed was not. (more…)

AGRIBUSINESS, THE PATENT SYSTEM, AND BIOPIRACY

By Vandana Shiva (*)

NEW DELHI, Mar (IPS) - India is being swept by an epidemic of
biopiracy – the patenting of indigenous biodiversity and traditional
knowledge by global corporations. First it was the neem plant, then
basmati rice. Now our wheat, our ‘’atta'’ (whole wheat flour), our
‘’chapatis'’ (flat unleavened bread) have been patented. (more…)

The Rising Corporate Military Monster
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

A corporate military monster is being created in Iraq.

The U.S. government is relying on private military contractors like never before.

Approximately 15,000 military contractors, maybe more, are now working in Iraq. The four Americans brutally killed and mutilated in Fallujah March 31 were part of this informal army of occupation.

Contractors are complicating traditional norms of military command and control, and challenging the basic norms of accountability that are supposed to govern the government’s use of violence. Human rights abuses go unpunished. Reliance on poorly monitored contractors is bleeding the public treasury. The contractors are simultaneously creating opportunities for the government to evade public accountability, and, in Iraq at least, are on the verge of evolving into an independent force at least somewhat beyond the control of the U.S. military. And, as the contractors grow in numbers and political influence, their power to entrench themselves and block reform is growing. (more…)

By Mark Sommer (*)

BERKELEY, Jan (IPS) - The issue of water and who controls it has
suddenly taken centre stage in world affairs. Once plentiful, fresh
potable water is a strictly finite and increasingly scarce resource for which demand is
now growing at twice the rate of a rapidly- rising global population.

Just one-half of one percent of the world’s water is fresh, safe, and
available for human consumption. Nearly a billion of the six billion
people on earth today lack dependable access to affordable drinking water,
and this figure is expected to triple within the next 25 years. Several trends
are contributing to this growing scarcity: increasing use by
water-intensive industries, inefficient irrigation, desertification,
the myriad effects of global warming, and chemical and organic pollution. (more…)

Roberto Savio

Geneva may – ILO’s groundbreaking report “A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for Allâ€? is not merely an intellectual exercise reflecting on the state of the ongoing globalization process. Rather it is a consensually approved document that lays down a number of measures to be taken by both international organizations and governments on a global basis.

The document was submitted by the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, a wide-ranging and representative body comprising Nobel laureates, politicians, social and economic experts, businessmen, and organized labor, academia and civil society representatives. (more…)