World-News

Yes, It's Torture

by Joseph L. Galloway, McClatchy Newspapers
http://ga3.org/ct/kd20pgF1PEaA/


From TomPaine.com



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=waterboarding
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Joseph+L.+Galloway

http://groups.google.com/group/mobilfunk_newsletter/t/b2cbf922578f4cdb



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=electromagnetic

http://groups.google.de/group/freepage-news/t/1d7c586dac20e19b?hl=en



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Joachim+Mutter
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Joachim+Mutter

Peter Grier, reporting for The Christian Science Monitor, writes: "Much of the opposition to retired federal judge Michael Mukasey's nomination to be the next attorney general has centered on his refusal to call the harsh interrogation technique of waterboarding torture. But some senators, both Republicans and Democrats, are concerned about another aspect of Mr. Mukasey's view of the law: his embrace of expanded wartime powers for the president."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110807F.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mukasey
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=interrogation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=waterboarding
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=wartime+power

Michael M. Grynbaum and Peter S. Goodman, reporting for The New York Times, write: "Stock markets plummeted and the dollar sank to a record low against the euro today as investors worldwide grew skittish over rising oil prices and the prospect of a substantial economic slowdown in the United States."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110807D.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=dollar+weak

Renee Schoof, reporting for McClatchy Newspapers, writes: "The practice of waterboarding would be outlawed specifically, along with other extreme interrogation techniques, under legislation pushed by two Democratic senators."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110807C.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=waterboarding
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=interrogation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Renee+Schoof

Manu Raju and Mike Soraghan, reporting for The Hill, write: "Four powerful lawmakers are working on a new Iraq plan for the Democratic Congress in the hope it will reignite the war debate as soon as this week."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110807A.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Manu+Raju
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mike+Soraghan

Bundesinnenminister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) hält die derzeitigen Möglichkeiten der Ermittlungsbehörden zur akustischen Wohnraumüberwachung für völlig unzureichend. Inzwischen sei dieses Fahndungsinstrument "faktisch nicht mehr im Einsatz", obwohl es im Grundgesetz abgesichert sei, behauptete der Minister am 7. November vor der Justizpressekonferenz in Karlsruhe. Verantwortlich dafür sei die "öffentliche Debatte" nach dem Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts zum "Großen Lauschangriff" vom März 2004.

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?H=N&Nr=16912



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Schäuble
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Überwachung

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1108-13.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=ACLU
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=waterboarding

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/08/5108/



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/08/5101/

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Palm Oil Warning for Indonesia

BBC News: "Land clearances in Indonesia to meet the growing global demand for palm oil pose a serious threat to the environment, a report has warned. Forests are being burned and peat wetlands drained for plantations, causing huge releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Greenpeace said."

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/110807EA.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=palm+oil
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=biofuels

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/08/5097/



http://freepage.twoday.net/topics/Is+Iran+next/

CounterPunch
by Paul Craig Roberts

11/07/07

The macho super patriots who support the Bush regime still haven’t caught on that US superpower status rests on the dollar being the reserve currency, not on a military unable to occupy Baghdad. If the dollar were not the world currency, the US would have to earn enough foreign currencies to pay for its 737 oversees bases, an impossibility considering America’s $800 billion trade deficit. When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, foreigners will cease to finance the US trade and budget deficits, and the American Empire along with its wars will disappear overnight...

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11072007.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Dollar+fall
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=empire
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Paul+Craig+Roberts

AlterNet
by Arianna Huffington

11/05/07

I’ve written about how the lunatic fringe of the GOP has taken over the party. Well, the takeover is so complete that those looking to lead the party have come to the conclusion that the only way they can win is to compete for the 24 percent of the country that does not think we are headed over the edge of a cliff. They are all vying to be voted head wacko of the lunatic fringe. Running on a platform of heightened Bushism, they seem to think the reason three-quarters of the country has turned against the president is because he just wasn’t extreme enough. So the problems of the GOP will only intensify when Bush packs his bags...

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/67124/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=GOP
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Arianna+Huffington

No Force, No Fraud
by Bob Smith

We are regularly told by our government that we and our government are virtually the same thing … that someone who attacks or criticizes our government is attacking our people and our ‘way of life.’ Our politicians love to talk about WE, and US, attempting to instill the idea that every action they take is in our national interest and that we, the people, must stand behind those actions if we are to survive as a nation. They would have us believe that WE and our government are synonymous, and that to believe otherwise is to be disloyal to our nation. Those are lies, and we must REJECT those lies... (originally published 2005; posted 11/05/07)

http://tinyurl.com/2tovt6


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bob+Smith

Reason
by Jacob Sullum

11/07/07

Federal law defines torture as an act ’specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.’ It defines ’severe mental pain or suffering’ as ‘the prolonged mental harm’ caused by, among other things, ‘the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering’ or ‘the threat of imminent death.’ Is there any way that tying someone down, tipping him backward, covering his face with cloth or plastic, and pouring water over him to produce the sensations of drowning would not qualify as torture?

http://www.reason.com/news/show/123352.html



We have ways …

The American Conservative
by James Bovard

11/05/07

On Oct. 4, the New York Times blew another ten-foot hole in the Bush administration’s torture cover-up. The Times revealed that the Justice Department produced a secret legal opinion in early 2005 permitting CIA interrogators to use ‘combined effects’ on detainees, including head slapping, waterboarding, frigid temperatures, manacling for many hours in stress positions, and blasting with loud music to assure sleep deprivation. The Times labeled the memo as an ‘expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.’ Within hours of the paper hitting the streets, President Bush issued the same moth-eaten denial he has used many times since Abu Ghraib: ‘This government does not torture people. You know, we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations.’ But it is the ‘law’ as contorted by administration lawyers who rubberstamp whatever methods Bush or Cheney demand. The same lawyers who tell Bush he has ‘inherent authority’ to wiretap Americans’ phone calls also tell him he has authority to redefine torture, regardless of the English-language precedents dating back to Chaucer...

http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_11_05/article3.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=waterboarding
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=drowning
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=interrogation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=detainees
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Abu+Ghraib
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=wiretapping
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jacob+Sullum
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=James+Bovard

New York Daily News

11/08/07

Federal prosecutors plan to ask a grand jury Thursday to indict Rudy Giuliani’s ex-police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, on a variety of corruption and tax fraud charges. If the grand jury votes today to indict, the charges would be unsealed tomorrow. Kerik has made arrangements to surrender, rather than be arrested by U.S. marshals, the sources say. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia plans to seek an indictment charging Kerik tried to influence a probe of allegedly mob-linked contractor, Interstate Industrial Corp., according to two sources familiar with the matter. Garcia will also ask a grand jury sitting in White Plains to charge Kerik with providing false information on his application when President Bush nominated him — on Giuliani’s recommendation — to be homeland security czar, the sources say...

http://tinyurl.com/362rxj


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bernard+Kerik
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Giuliani
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=corruption

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1107-06.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=ACLU
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/07/5083/



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Howard+Zinn

by Dan R. Laks http://www.toxcenter.de/buecher/tox-info/amalgam/hg-schaeden-am-nerven-engl.pdf


Informant: Teresa Binstock



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=neurodegenerative
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=mercury
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=amalgam

Truthout contributor Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III says that "In today's political lexicon, the term family values has been hijacked by the Christian political right as a way to define an ambiguous set of moral beliefs and standards that they use to further a morally defenseless political agenda. In the early 1980's, individuals such as Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, through The Christian Coalition, began to target the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could promote their conservative religious agenda and inject that religious agenda into mainstream American politics. They successfully combined their moral conservatism with political conservatism, resulting in a politics that is neither morally nor ethically based."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110707S.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Wilmer+J.+Leon

Margaret Kimberley writes for Black Agenda Report: "Now Giuliani is running for the Republican presidential nomination and he is the very worst of a bad lot. He unabashedly supports the occupation of Iraq and a military attack on Iran. He doesn't think simulating drowning via water boarding is torture and agrees wholeheartedly with the Bush destruction of civil liberties. If a potential Giuliani presidency in any way resembles a Giuliani mayoralty then the country would be in for a truly awful time."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110807P.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=GOP
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Giuliani
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=waterboarding
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Margaret+Kimberley

Jessica Holzer reports for The Hill, "Lobbyists for the private equity and hedge fund industries have targeted vulnerable freshmen who may need cash for tough reelection battles in order to stave off a tax hike on fund managers’ carried interest."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110807O.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=hedge+fund
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=lobbyists

Erik Eckholm reports for The New York Times, "More than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned up homeless, and the Veterans Affairs Department and aid groups say they are bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110807K.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=homeless+veterans

The dangers behind Blackwater's rise to power have not been told among the hours of coverage by the mainstream media, so Truthout's Geoff Millard sat down with Jeremy Scahill, author of a new book on the mercenary firm. In this interview, Scahill delves deep into the real dangers of a private mercenary army as powerful as Blackwater.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110807J.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Blackwater
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=media
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=mercenary
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jeremy+Scahill
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Geoff+Millard

By John Cleary

A local Green Party councillor has called on the county council to make a concerted effort to elevate mobile phone masts as far away from built up areas as possible.

Cllr Alan Price questioned government assurances that so far there was no evidence of adverse short or long-term health effects from exposure to the radio-frequency signals from mobile phone activity.

Read More...
http://www.kilkennyadvertiser.ie/index.php?aid=8034

Anti-mast campaigner Adrian Gray who is to receive compensation

A GOVERNMENT watchdog has attacked the borough council for mismanaging an application to erect a phone mast last year.

Ignorance of the rules governing masts meant Woking Borough Council missed its chance to voice opposition to one being erected in Parley Drive.

Read More...
http://www.woking.co.uk/news/2017/2017511/council_rapped_for_phone_mast_blunder

„Nach ihrem Coup mit der Einführung von Studiengebühren gelungen, ausgedacht und durchgesetzt vom „Zentrum für Hochschulentwicklung (CHE)" – einer Bertelsmann-Stiftungs-Organisation im Zusammenwirken mit der Deutschen Hochschulrektorenkonferenz, liegen die nächsten Pläne für Bildungsgebühren für Sekundarstufe II und I bei der Bertelsmann-Stiftung bereits in der Schublade…“ Artikel von Erich Katterfeld in NRhZ-Online - Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Online-Flyer vom 07. November 2007 http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=11680


Aus: LabourNet, 8. November 2007



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bertelsmann
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Neoliberalismus

Kein Platz für Kriegstreiber!

Der Intendant des Bochumer Schauspielhauses, Elmar Goerden, hat für den 11. November zu einer Lesung mit Norbert Lammert und Jürgen Flimm unter dem Titel “‘S IST LEIDER KRIEG” eingeladen. Dies ist eine Wiederholung einer Aufführung vom 7. Oktober in Duisburg im Rahmen der Ruhrtriennale. In Bochum regt sich dagegen starker Widerstand und auch der ehemalige Intendant des Bochumer Schauspielhauses, Frank-Patrick Steckel, schrieb dazu in einem Offenen Brief: „meine langjährige Verbundenheit mit dem Schauspielhaus Bochum ist es, die mich zu der Bitte an Sie bewegt, den Herren Norbert Lammert (CDU) und Jürgen Flimm (SPD) den Auftritt auf einer der Bühnen Ihres Theaters zu verwehren. Die Bühnen eines Schauspielhauses sind der Verstellungskunst der Schauspieler vorbehalten - für die Heuchelei von Berufspolitikern und Kunstfunktionären ist da kein Platz. Und was kann es anderes sein als Heuchelei, wenn Angehörige der kriegstreibenden Bundestagsparteien Texte gegen den Krieg lesen? Der schöne Trug des Schauspiels wird erniedrigt, wenn neben ihm der hässliche Trug machtpolitischer Interessen Fuß fasst…“

Siehe dazu und zu den geplanten Protesten:

Wenn die Oberen vom Frieden reden… Sonderseite bei Bo-alternativ mit umfangreichem Pressespiegel http://www.bo-alternativ.de/category/lammert-flimm/

Programmheft zu einer geplanten Aktion bei der Veranstaltung am
11.11.07 (pdf) http://www.bo-alternativ.de/frieden-reden/progammheft.pdf


Aus: LabourNet, 8. November 2007

The growth in human population and rising consumption have exceeded the planet's ability to support us, argues John Feeney. In this week's Green Room, he says it is time to ring the alarm bells and take radical action in order to avert unspeakable consequences.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7078857.stm


From Information Clearing House

The dollar fell the most since September against the currencies of its six biggest trading partners after Chinese officials signaled plans to diversify the nation's $1.43 trillion of foreign exchange reserves.

http://snipurl.com/1tb27



Dollar hits 26-year low against pound

The pound climbed to $2.10 for the first time since 1981 this morning, boosted by speculation that China was preparing to shift its foreign reserves out of dollars.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2206584,00.html



Oil and gold leap as investors flee dollar

The dollar has fallen beyond $1.47 per euro, according to Reuters data, bringing its losses this year to around 10 percent. It also set record lows against a basket of six major currencies, on track for its biggest one-day fall since November 2006.

http://snipurl.com/1tb2a



Oil blasts towards $99 on weak dollar

Oil stormed towards $99 a barrel on Wednesday, closing in on a triple-digit all-time high, driven by a slumping U.S. dollar and concern about a fuel supply crunch heading into the peak demand winter season.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/137878.html


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=weak+dollar

In a key victory in the war against torture, today a federal court ruled that the lawsuit against a private military contractor in Iraq should be heard by a jury of Americans.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/28476


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=interrogation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Abu+Ghraib
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=contractor

As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure".

http://snipurl.com/1tb25


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=waterboarding

Michael Mukasey ultimately owed his approval by the Committee to the two Democrats who broke with their party to support him: Chuck Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/07/155221


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mukasey
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=waterboarding
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Schumer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Feinstein

The U.S. Navy launched a series of exercises in the Gulf to enhance skills required in any war with Iran which, according to British press reports, could occur in early 2008.

http://snipurl.com/1tb1y



The Neoconservative Agenda to Sacrifice the Fifth Fleet

The New Pearl Harbor

By Michael E. Salla, M.A., Ph.D.

Neoconservatives within the Bush administration are aggressively promoting a range of military actions against Iran that will culminate in Iran attacking the US Navy's

Fifth Fleet with sophisticated cruise anti-ship missiles. Iran has sufficient quantities of cruise missiles to destroy much or all of the Fifth Fleet which is within range of Iran's mobile missile launchers strategically located along its mountainous terrain overlooking the Persian Gulf.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18687.htm


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/topics/Is+Iran+next/
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=neocons
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Michael+E.+Salla

Blix said that by staying in Iraq, the US military would also be able to keep a close eye on neighbouring Iran -- a country he said was treated differently to another state with nuclear ambitions, North Korea.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071107/pl_afp/iraqusmilitaryblix_071107063949


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Blix
http://freepage.twoday.net/topics/Is+Iran+next/

"You're not going home" this year until more money for the war is approved. But his proposal to add $70 billion for the war was voted down.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06399868.htm


From Information Clearing House

By Mike Whitney

First we stop the killing, and then we restore the Constitution. These are our two main priorities. And that's why I'm voting for Ron Paul. He is the only candidate (with a chance to win) who's promising to do either. And he'll keep his word. That makes him the only truly American candidate running for president.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18681.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ron+Paul
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=media
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mike+Whitney

By Jessica Hupp

It's no secret that the dollar is on a downward spiral. Its value is dropping, and the Fed isn't doing a whole lot to change that. As a result, a number of countries are considering a shift away from the dollar to preserve their assets. These are seven of the countries currently considering a move from the dollar, and how they'll have an effect on its value and the US economy.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18680.htm

By Amy Goodman

If a U.S. citizen, soldier or official were waterboarded somewhere overseas, would Americans hesitate for a moment to call it torture? A filibuster might give the Mukasey supporters like Schumer and Feinstein pause to reconsider.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18679.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mukasey
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=waterboarding
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Schumer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Feinstein
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Amy+Goodman

By David Cracknell, Political Editor

TONY BLAIR privately conceded two weeks before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein did not have any usable weapons of mass destruction, Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, reveals today.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18676.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=weapons+of+mass+destruction

by Devvy Kidd

Where does that big bling go? Dividend checks from selling out American jobs to commie counties like China. Corporate America no longer represents America, they have dumped on the very people who built them. But, as the middle class is now getting a glimpse of poverty staring them in the face if things don't turn around, they're waking up to the reality that these greedy corporations care nothing about US, only about their hundred million dollar CEO packages. Remember what I said in an earlier column: Hungry bellies make for angry mobs.....

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd321.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/Devvy

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/199.html

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Kucinich Presents Articles Impeachment to Congress

Rep. Dennis Kucinich - November 6, 2007 - House of Representatives - Video and documents

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Presents Articles of Impeachment for Vice President Richard Cheney under the rules of "Privileged Resolution " in Congress.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18682.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Kucinich
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach

http://groups.google.de/group/freepage-news/t/a83086ce25ee98b3?hl=en



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Kucinich
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach

http://groups.google.com/group/mobilfunk_newsletter/t/fa41edb306642341



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=electrical+pollution