World-News

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4782/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

A message from Eleanor

The Life of a KFC chicken: The Colonel's secret recipe

If you're one of the 850 million chickens killed by KFC for meat each year, you spend your short life confined to a filthy shed with tens of thousands of other chickens—the shed isn't cleaned, and the smell of ammonia and rotting excrement is so heavy that it burns your lungs with every breath.

You've been bred and drugged to grow so obese that you can hardly walk, and you watch as others become crippled under their own weight and die of thirst just a few inches away from the water nozzle.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/489249946

PLEASE SIGN AND FORWARD!

In the past two years, campaign and political action committees controlled by Congressman John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) paid ever-larger commissions to his wife's one-person company and spent tens of thousands of dollars on gifts at stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co. and a Ritz-Carlton day spa.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071106N.shtml

The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said the White House briefed his committee on another "significant" intelligence program only after it was brought to his attention by a government whistleblower.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071106M.shtml

The rapid buildup and cost overruns in recent years resulted from widespread calls for more military might. Any momentum for Pentagon transformation was overtaken by Rumsfeld's focus on Iraq.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071106F.shtml

The Bush administration is poised to press the UN Security Council to begin the process of imposing punitive action against Iran, after signals over the weekend that Tehran will not provide the straightforward acceptance or rejection today of a US-backed proposal designed to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071106C.shtml

Cindy Sheehan quotes Major General Smedley Butler, who wrote in 1935: "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071106A.shtml

http://alternet.org/dontblockmyvoice


Informant: Bugs

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
by Douglas MacBain

07/10/06

Is it not time to stand up to those who would have our democracy in their pockets? To those who would pauper the many to enrich the few? To those who seek to bind us in fear while profiting from the misery they create? To those who view our military personnel as simple cannon fodder for their wars of choice? ... Haven't all of us, whether Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, Socialist or Libertarian, had enough of this?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/276843_firstperson10.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Power of Narrative
by Arthur Silber

07/10/06

In terms of the overall contours of our national debate, I think we may have entered new territory as the catastrophe in Iraq is on the very edge of exploding into uncontrollable bloodshed and unending mayhem on a very large scale. The massacres and violence in Baghdad itself are only the latest indication of what may be in store, and of a trajectory that it may be impossible to stop or alter at this point. The denial and avoidance of facts that contradict or call one's beliefs into question is a necessary part of the True Believer psychology. But when all the available facts are in direct opposition to one's preferred view of the world, the True Believer faces a stark choice: he can either begin to acknowledge the complete failure of his delusions, or he can reject reality completely...

http://tinyurl.com/n5udz


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner

07/10/06

Ridiculing the feckless Democrats for their fragmentation on the Iraq War is an easy spectator sport. On the lonely left advocating withdrawal is Senator Russ Feingold, lately joined by Senator John Kerry (did somebody say flip-flop?). On the right Joe Lieberman is defending his Senate seat in dovish Connecticut, while a hawkish Hillary Clinton seems to be incautiously taking her Democratic base for granted and looking beyond her expected 2008 nomination to the general election. And in the mushy center, Democratic leader Harry Reid and 38 Senate colleagues support a vaguely phased withdrawal. But ridiculing these worthies is a little too easy. Because the search for a viable Iraq policy is really hard. President Bush has left the country with a policy problem from hell that may be literally insoluble, for him or anyone else. Put aside partisanship, and consider the options. The first is stay the course. The problem is that the war, at any politically imaginable level of U.S. troop commitment, seems hopelessly unwinnable...

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=11703


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_7986.shtml


Informant: ranger116

--------

Bush could seize absolute control of U.S. government
http://tinyurl.com/z72ph

http://www.zoneblanche.fr/


Next-up news Lettres

Eric Jenaer, Nuisance des microondes: les photons seraient-ils responsables?
http://www.next-up.org/pages/nouvellesdumonde63.php#1

"Unless this country acts strongly to rebuild its ocean fisheries, including West Coast salmon, no amount of federal and state aid will be enough to rescue the fishing industry and coastal communities," says The Oregonian, warning that a weak House version of the Magnuson-Stevens Act would further reduce protections if passed.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/071006EC.shtml

Population growth has led to over-fishing on the Gulf coast. Federal officials have a mandate to protect fisheries from over-fishing, but fishery managers in the Gulf and elsewhere have ignored the law and allowed unsustainable fishing for many important fish, scientists say.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/071006EB.shtml

Sebastian Mallaby warns us that, "These days almost nobody asserts that global warming isn't happening. Instead, we are confronted with a new lie: that we can respond to climate change without taxing and regulating carbon."

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/071006EA.shtml

The White House kept intelligence activities secret from the lawmakers responsible for overseeing them until whistleblowers revealed the programmes, the house intelligence committee chairman said yesterday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1816660,00.html


From Information Clearing House

The White House possibly broke the law by keeping intelligence activities a secret from the lawmakers responsible for overseeing them, the House Intelligence Committee chairman said yesterday.

http://www.nysun.com/article/35694


From Information Clearing House

New documents show senior Defense officials ignored the request by military commanders to clarify interrogation methods.

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/26099prs20060710.html



CCR Report In Full

Report Details Recent Torture and Inhumane Treatment in Violation of U.S. Law and the Supreme Court’s Recent Hamdan Decision.

http://tinyurl.com/ow8k5


From Information Clearing House



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


http://tinyurl.com/ow8k5

Prisoners at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay have been subjected to "systematic physical, psychological, sexual, medical and religious abuse," according to a report released Monday by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

http://tinyurl.com/mecav


From Information Clearing House



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

For the first time in its history, Latin America , sharply split between a tiny rich white elite and huge poverty, is moving towards a degree of independence and also a degree of integration. So the United States is terrified.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13938.htm

Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the human rights minister said on Monday, as the military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1007392006


From Information Clearing House

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4780/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

SWIFT: EU-Industrie, US-Spionage
http://quintessenz.at/cgi-bin/index?id=000100003627

Ein Interview mit Mag Wompel zu Hartz IV, Ein-Euro-Jobs und der Kampagne Agenturschluss von Markus Griesser in Grundrisse 18
http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a9709070/grundrisse18/wompel.htm


Aus: LabourNet, 11. Juli 2006

Artikel von Christa Sonnenfeld http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/aktionen/gauner.html


Die Intelligenz und die „soziale Frage“ – Aus heutiger Sicht

Artikel von Karl Heinz Roth in Nr. 18 der grundrisse http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a9709070/grundrisse18/karl_heinz_roth.htm

Aus dem Text: „….Denn zu den versteinerten Strukturen einer lebenslang fixierten, tayloristisch zerlegten, patriarchalisch binnenstrukturierten und konsumistisch kompensierten Arbeitsethik will niemand mehr zurückkehren. Erst wenn wir den ambivalenteren Sachverhalt begreifen, dass die flexibilisierte Arbeit nicht nur Prekarisierung und verschärfte Ausbeutung bedeutet, sondern auch Spaß macht und in ihrer weiteren Entfaltung auf neue Weise sozial abzusichern ist, werden wir in der Lage sein, die neuen Beziehungen zwischen Intelligenz und arbeitenden Klassen adäquat zu bestimmen und eine egalitär-sozialistische Gegendynamik gegen die reformierte kapitalistische Verwertungslogik in Gang zu bringen. (…) Diese neue Managerschicht hat aber auch die politischen Strukturen der untergegangenen Arbeiterbewegung besetzt und agiert auf einer inneren Linie gegen die Lernprozesse der sich von oben und unten verbreiternden Multitude. Das ist der soziale Ausdruck eines immer krasser zu Tage tretenden Demokratiedefizits in den Apparaten der sich entsprechend dem Mitgliederschwund „gesundschrumpfenden“, also weiter zentralisierenden Einheitsgewerkschaft, aber auch des neuen linken Aufbruchs. Die Zugehörigkeit zur politischen Kaste dieser Managerschicht hat auch für viele Akteure des neuesten linken Aufbruchs oberste Priorität. Ihrem Selbstverständnis nach sind sie Berufspolitiker, für die die Sozialbewegungen in erster Linie Hilfstruppen für die Konsolidierung des durch sie repräsentierten Segments des politischen Felds darstellen….“


Aus: LabourNet, 11. Juli 2006

Redaktioneller Beitrag von indymedia vom 10.07.2006 mit vielen weiterführenden Links für aktuelle Berichterstattung http://de.indymedia.org/2006/07/151918.shtml


Repressionen vor dem G8

„In den letzten Tagen vor dem Beginn des G8-Gipfels in St. Petersburg ist ein akutes ansteigen der Repressionen gegen AktivistInnen zu beobachten. Nicht nur dass Leute festgenommen werden, heute morgen wurde auch das Buero des Legal-Teams in Moskau von der Polizei durchsucht. Hier ein aktueller Infostand von Montag Abend…“ Artikel von indy_ru vom 10.07.2006 bei indymedia http://de.indymedia.org/2006/07/151928.shtml


Aus: LabourNet, 11. Juli 2006

Am 24.06.2006 schrieb Rainer Rupp in der jungen Welt unter der Überschrift „Marschbefehl verweigert“: „Der 28 Jahre alte Leutnant der US-Armee, Ehren Watada, verweigerte am Donnerstag seinen Marschbefehl in den Irak mit der Begründung, erstens, daß er als Soldat verpflichtet sei, Recht und Gesetz und die Verfassung der USA zu achten, zweitens, weil er in Irak dazu gezwungen würde, Kriegsverbrechen zu begehen, und drittens, weil der Irak-Krieg ein ungerechter und illegaler sei. Damit ist der aus Hawaii stammende Watada der erste Offizier der US-Armee, der den Einsatz in Irak wegen der Illegalität des Krieges offen ablehnt und so das mächtige Pentagon öffentlichkeitswirksam herausfordert. Watada wurde umgehend in Fort Lewis im Bundesstaat Washington weggesperrt. Ihm droht ein Prozeß vor einem militärischen Standgericht. Wegen des verhängten Kontaktverbots kann Watada nur noch über seinen Anwalt mit der Außenwelt in Verbindung treten…“ Thomas Trüten hat auf seiner Homepage die wichtigsten Informationen zusammengefasst, viele Links recherchiert und Aktionen beschrieben. Siehe also dazu:

7 Jahre Haft wegen Befehlsverweigerung?

Sonderseite von Thomas Trüten
http://www.trueten.de/permalink/7JahreHaft.html


Aus: LabourNet, 11. Juli 2006



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

Woman 11th July 2006 is carrying a new article on e-smog.

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/woman11July102.jpg
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/woman11July(2)104.jpg


With kind regards

Sarah Dacre MSc ACIB
London, UK

By Maddy Biddulph

Vodafone, T-Mobile and other operators should be forced to notify residents in advance about where and when masts could be built in their area, Oxford city councillors have decided.

They unanimously passed a motion that telecommunications companies should warn people about their plans - regardless of whether planning permission or prior consultation is needed.

This would stop mobile phone firms putting up transmitter masts without consultation or planning permission, under permitted development rights. continued...

City councill Labour group leader Bob Price called on the Government to bring national regulations in England and Wales in line with Scotland and Northern Ireland, where all mobile phone mast applications have to go through the full planning process.

Mr Price, who proposed the motion, said: "It's a wake-up call to the Government to realise the depth of concern about mobile phone masts.

"It needs to take stronger measures to guarantee public consultation." 'It is a wake-up call to the Government to realise the depth of concern about mobile phone masts, and it needs to take stronger measures to guarantee public consultation' Councillor Bob Price

The council's stance does not alter the legal situation, but is designed to put pressure on ministers.

It comes after protests earlier this month brought a halt to proposals to build masts at the Marlborough House pub, in Grandpont, and the Chester Arms, off Iffley Road.

T-Mobile agreed to review its plans and put installation on hold after hundreds of objectors turned out at public meetings.

The firm did not need planning permission to carry out the work, as it had permitted development rights for both sites.

Tim Treacher, of Western Road, in South Oxford, who campaigned to stop the phone masts being built at the pubs, welcomed the councillors' vote.

He said: "What happened with the Marlborough House and Chester Arms is a good indication where, because the firm did such a cursory survey before they started actual work, they were not aware the sites were near schools, nor of the strength of feeling in the area."

Edward Newell, another anti-mast campaigner, said: "The Government should never have allowed the mobile phone companies to put these things up exactly where they wanted them in the first place."

A spokesman for the Mobile Operators' Association - which represents UK mobile phone operators on planning issues - said removing permitted development rights would do nothing to address the concerns some people had about masts.

She said: "Operators follow the guidance in the Code of Best Practice and the Ten Commitments, which identifies on a case-by-case basis what consultation should be carried out, in addition to that required by statute.

"It would not be appropriate to address any perceived weaknesses in the current permitted development/prior approval rules through their abolition.

"They should be addressed by improving the efficiency with which local planning authorities consult locally over prior approval proposals and process objections from local residents."

8:55am today

© Copyright 2001-2006 Newsquest Media Group

http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headlines/display.var.826025.0.early_warning_call_on_masts.php

Zur Überwachung von Mitgliedern und Funktionsträger/innen der Partei durch den Verfassungsschutz

#Die Linkspartei.PDS: Pressemitteilungen

11. Juli 2006

Der Parteivorstand der Linkspartei.PDS protestiert gegen die Überwachung von Mitgliedern und Funktionsträger/innen der Linkspartei.PDS und erklärt:

Aus verschiedenen Einlassungen des Verfassungsschutzes entnehmen wir, dass die Linkspartei.PDS, die mit einer Fraktion im Deutschen Bundestag vertreten und in Berlin und Mecklenburg-Vorpommern gemeinsam mit der SPD an den Landesregierungen beteiligt ist, offenbar komplett und systematisch unter Beobachtung steht. Diese Beobachtung wird damit begründet, dass die Linkspartei.PDS "insgesamt in ihren programmatischen Aussagen und ihrer politischen Praxis tatsächliche Anhaltspunkte für linksextremistische Bestrebungen" gebe. Aus dieser Aussage wird abgeleitet, dass schon eine normale Funktionärstätigkeit für die Linkspartei.PDS einen "konkreten und verdichteten Verdacht in bezug auf extremistische Bestrebungen" und damit Überwachung erlaube. Diese Überwachung wird auch auf demokratisch gewählte Volksvertreter/innen - bis hin zu Mitgliedern des Deutschen Bundestages und des Europäischen Parlaments - ausgedehnt. Damit wird eine neue Qualität der Bespitzelung einer demokratischen Partei und ihrer Funktionsträger/innen erreicht, unabhängig davon, ob sie Abgeordnete/r, Minister/in oder Bürgermeister/in sind. Das stellt eine Umkehr der Aufgaben des Verfassungsschutzes dar: Die Volksvertretungen sollen den Geheimdienst kontrollieren und nicht umgekehrt! Der Verfassungsschutz wird missbraucht, missliebige politische Gegner als Staatsfeinde zu brandmarken. Mit einem solchen Vorgehen wird oppositionelle demokratische Tätigkeit unter Generalverdacht gestellt. Demokratisches politisches Engagement wird behindert. Der Verdacht liegt nahe, dass alles, was links von der SPD steht, überwacht wird. Die Mitglieder und Funktionsträger/innen der Linkspartei.PDS werden sich politisch und mit juristischen Mitteln gegen die Überwachung durch den Verfassungsschutz zu Wehr setzen. Der Parteivorstand fordert die sofortige Einstellung der Überwachung von Mitgliedern und Funktionsträger/innen der Linkspartei.PDS!

http://sozialisten.de/presse/presseerklaerungen/view_html?zid=33281

--------

15. Juli 2010

Bespitzelung der Partei DIE LINKE muss enden

Mit einem bundesweiten Aufruf setzen sich 51 Prominente für die Beendigung der Beobachtung durch den Verfassungsschutz ein. Die Unterzeichnerinnen und Unterzeichner erinnern an die breite parlamentarische Verankerung der LINKEN in Bund, Ländern und Kommunen. Die Bespitzelung der LINKEN bezeichnen sie als undemokratisch und verfassungswidrig. Der Verfassungsschutz mache sich durch die Bespitzelungspraxis zum Handlanger von Parteiinteressen. Die Vorsitzenden der LINKEN, Gesine Lötzsch und Klaus Ernst, begrüßen den Aufruf und kündigen juristische Schritte gegen die Beobachtung der LINKEN sowie ihrer Mandatsträgerinnen und Mandatsträger an. Sie erklären:

Die Beobachtung der Linken durch den Verfassungsschutz ist ein Skandal. Das ist eine politische Instrumentalisierung des Geheimdienstes. Wir sind Demokraten und haben oft genug vor dem Verfassungsgericht gegen verfassungswidrige Gesetze der Regierung gestritten. Die Beobachtung muss im Bund und in allen Ländern beendet werden. Wir freuen uns über jede Unterstützung aus Politik und Gesellschaft für dieses Anliegen. Die in der nächsten Woche anstehende Verhandlung vor dem Bundesverwaltungsgericht über die Bespitzelung von Bodo Ramelow hat für uns Signalcharakter. Wir wollen und werden alle politischen und juristischen Mittel ausschöpfen, um gegen die Beobachtung unserer Partei und unserer Mandatsträger vorzugehen.

http://www.die-linke.de/nc/presse/presseerklaerungen/detail/artikel/bespitzelung-der-partei-die-linke-muss-enden/



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bespitzelung
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Verfassungsschutz
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bodo+Ramelow

by Nancy Levant

America is the sacrificial lamb of the globalists. Once America goes, freedom goes. Once freedom goes, slavery ensues in absolute full force. And again, total disarmament is the first badge of slavery.....

http://www.newswithviews.com/Levant/nancy49.htm

by Geoff Metcalf

ABC's 20/20 recently did a story about current medical abuse of power. My last column on the topic was in 2003 and I ‘thought’ the practice had ended. WRONG! Brian Ross interviewed a doctor who, defending the indefensible, didn't see anything wrong with giving patients an experimental artificial blood called Polyheme...without their permission!.....

http://www.newswithviews.com/metcalf/metcalf188.htm

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4781/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news



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

"Are we who want the killing to stop as committed to peace as those who are committed to war?" asks Ted Glick. "The war machine will certainly commit the lives of our children and Iraqi children. But will we commit our own lives? Would we exchange our lives for those of the soldiers being shipped out? Would we risk our lives so Iraqi children could live? That is why I am beginning this hunger strike on our national holiday: to stop an insane war and bring the troops home, and also to keep my country from going where we seem to be heading."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071006D.shtml

Larry Johnson points out: "Peter Hoekstra's definition of politicization is a CIA officer who speaks out against corrupt cronyism. Hoekstra and the rest of the extreme right believe fervently that Kappes was part of an old guard committed first and foremost to protecting CIA's bureaucratic perks and undermining Bush's policies. Whenever the CIA dared to disagree with a pet Bush administration claim, such as the now-discredited reports that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium yellowcake from Niger, the right interpreted this as rank insubordination rather than sound advice."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071006A.shtml

Verdacht auf Masern-Komplikationen durch Medikamenten- Nebenwirkungen Bei jüngster Epidemie keine einzige stationäre Einweisung

Augsburg (pts/10.07.2006/10:00) - Magazin: Die meisten Masern- Komplikationen werden von zu leichtfertig verabreichten Medikamenten verursacht. Petition fordert unabhängige Studien und Aussetzung der offiziellen Impfempfehlung. Als das wichtigste Argument für die Notwendigkeit einer Impfung gegen Masern gilt das als hoch angesehenes Risiko einer schweren Komplikation wie Enzephalitis (Gehirnentzündung). Wie das Magazin "impf-report" ( http://www.impf-report.de ) in seiner neuesten Ausgabe berichtet, könnte ein Großteil dieser Komplikationen nicht auf die Kinderkrankheit selbst, sondern vielmehr auf Medikamenten- Nebenwirkungen zurückzuführen sein. Eine Umfrage bei naturheilkundlich orientierten Ärzten in Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW), dem jüngsten Schauplatz einer großen Masernepidemie, habe ergeben, dass kein Masernpatient stationär eingewiesen und behandelt werden musste. Dazu stehe die von den Behörden gemeldete allgemeine Einweisungsrate von 16 % in deutlichem Kontrast. hier weiterlesen: http://www.pressetext.de/pte.mc?pte=060710006


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 27/2006

by John Prados, TomPaine.com

With the nuclear stakes high on several fronts, we need information without bias.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/07/10/grounding_us_intelligence.php

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4777/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Suzanne+Swift

Day 6

"I don't like being on this fast, trust me, but 3 Marines were killed in Iraq today - 3 unsuspecting families are about to head into a tailspin of senseless grief and we won't ever get an accurate count of the Iraqis who were killed today," writes Cindy Sheehan. "The Troops Home Fast is a moral response to an immoral act. We can be, and must be, morally strong so we can feast on the day that the last troop is brought home from the war crime in Iraq."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071006N.shtml

"When I was hired to work on the US House Appropriations Committee in 2001, I was told by many in Washington that the panel was one of last remaining places in Congress where things actually get done," writes David Sirota. "By the time I left Capitol Hill some two and a half years later, I had learned what all Americans are now realizing: The panel certainly does get things done, but not for the people who elected its members. It gets things done almost exclusively for those lobbyists and corporate interests that buy influence through campaign contributions."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071006L.shtml

"With the battle for the House and Senate heating up, the White House has once again resorted to its old tactic - instilling fear in the American public - in hopes of regaining control of both Houses of Congress come November," writes Jason Leopold.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071006J.shtml

Schmiergeldaffäre: Linkspartei kritisiert Manager-Versicherung für Peter Hartz (10.07.06)

Der Bundesgeschäftsführer der Linkspartei, Dietmar Bartsch, kritisiert die Manager-Haftpflichtversicherung von Ex-Volkswagen-Vorstand Peter Hartz. Es sei ein skandalöser Vorgang, wenn ein Versicherungskonzern mit Millionen für die Versäumnisse des VW-Managers in der Schmiergeldaffäre aufkomme, sagte Bartsch der "Berliner Zeitung". Das Nachrichtenmagazin "Focus" hatte berichtet, ein internationaler Versicherungskonzern sei bereit, rund 4,5 Millionen Euro zu bezahlen. Darauf hätten sich der Versicherer und der Autobauer nach wochenlangen Verhandlungen geeinigt.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet: http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=13976

IFAW alert

Find out how many marine mammals are killed each year by commercial fishing operations. Download free publication here.
http://www.oceana.org/fileadmin/oceana/uploads/dirty_fishing/Reports/PointlessPeril_FINALspreads.pdf

More than 30 years ago, the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) was enacted to keep whales, seals, dolphins and other marine mammals safe from hunting and human threats. But now this crucial protection is in grave danger of being weakened and the animals need you to speak out before it’s too late.
http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M717957139936594330816265

In just a few weeks, Congress will be considering H.R. 4075, a bill that would remove a critical provision from the MMPA. The amendment would remove a deadline by which the commercial fishing industry must significantly reduce the serious injury and death of marine mammals accidentally caught in fishing nets and/or gear.

The proposal also includes a provision that would allow facilities that house marine mammals to own them, letting them keep important information about their marine mammals out of the public’s reach.

Take Action: Protect Marine Mammals

The MMPA was the first legislation anywhere in the world to require an ecosystem approach to marine resource management. It includes a general ban on killing or importing marine mammals without a permit.

Twenty-seven marine mammal populations are still being killed in significant numbers. When Congress addressed the harm caused to marine mammals by commercial fishing in 1994, they created a “Zero Mortality Rate Goal” requiring the numbers of serious injuries and deaths from bycatch be reduced to insignificant levels. The deadline for this goal passed seven years ago.

As a result, approximately 1,900 additional whales, dolphins and other marine mammals are still killed each year. The new provision would remove the zero mortality rate deadline altogether, leaving commercial fisheries no real goal to reduce their impact on marine mammals.

Introduced by Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA), H.R. 4075 would weaken protections for marine mammals. Please contact your Representative today and tell them to OPPOSE this harmful bill.
http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M717957159936594330816265

Thanks for speaking out,

Fred O’Regan President and CEO

By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003116801_columbia10m.html

VANCOUVER, Wash. — First were the crayfish near Bonneville Dam, so loaded with toxins that scientists wondered how they could still be alive.

Then researchers learned Columbia River fish were contaminated enough that nearby tribes face dramatically higher risks of disease. Scientists since have found deformed sturgeon, uranium building up in clams near the Hanford nuclear reservation, and water in parts of the last stretch of the river as contaminated as Seattle's Duwamish River, a federal Superfund site.

Over the past five years, virtually unnoticed amid other issues, scientists have unearthed a wealth of new information detailing the extent of toxic contamination in the Columbia River, enough that the Environmental Protection Agency added the entire 1,200-mile river to a shortlist of major waterways demanding national attention.

"Salmon recovery and dams have been what people have been focused on," said Mary Lou Soscia, who coordinates Columbia River pollution issues for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "But you can't talk about a healthy Columbia without talking about toxics."

Two centuries after Lewis and Clark followed the river on their final push to the Pacific, the federal government, states and tribes are embarking on an unusually systematic attempt to assess how pollution in the Columbia is altering Northwest ecology.

So far the steps being taken are rudimentary, with modest goals: identify the worst contaminants, figure out where they are coming from, and reduce them by 10 percent in fish and water in five years. But those next few years could lay the groundwork for grander restoration efforts to come.

"The Columbia is a huge, dynamic river system," said Michael Gearheard, who oversees water issues for the EPA in the Northwest. "Is it in crisis? No. But there are areas that merit concern. We want to understand where contamination is coming from, and make sure it is stopped."

Unexpected findings

It's hardly a secret that the Columbia River is polluted. It's been known for years that heavy metals have washed into Lake Roosevelt from a mine in British Columbia, and that Portland Harbor was contaminated by decades of boat-building and steel-milling.

But some of the findings of the past several years have caught officials off-guard:

• Five years ago, a half-century-old pile of poisonous mercury-vapor lamps was discovered in the river near Bonneville Dam, 40 miles east of Portland. The river bottom there was so high in cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that crayfish, a favorite of local fishermen, had 15,000 times more PCBs than is considered safe. The worst of the dump has now been cleaned up, but researchers fear there may be other dumps like it.

• Last year, scientists at the Hanford nuclear reservation found another vast plume of highly radioactive technetium-99 in groundwater that is moving toward the river. It's the most threatening of several plumes that contaminate 80 square miles of groundwater. The Government Accountability Office recently said efforts to keep Hanford contamination from the river are often "not satisfactory."

• Because the Columbia and its tributaries drain an area about the size of France, "legacy pollutants" — chemicals banned in the 1970s such as PCBs and DDT — still flush into the river from farms, roads, construction sites and stormwater systems. They accumulate in fish and other animals at some of the highest levels in the Northwest.

• Newer chemicals, such as pesticides, are entering the river. The amount of PBDE flame retardants in fish near the headwaters in Canada is doubling every few years.

• For some Native Americans, who eat up to 11 times more fish than other Americans, the risk of cancer from toxins in Columbia River salmon may be as high as 1 in 500, the EPA suggested four years ago, which is far higher than the agency's threshold for concern. Risks are even greater for those who eat mostly sturgeon, which have so many chemicals in their bodies scientist believe it's causing the fish's population to decline. Even juvenile salmon may collect enough contaminants to make them more susceptible to disease.

And pollution in the Columbia seems to "move up the food chain faster than in other places in the Northwest," said Jeremy Buck, a scientist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who has studied ospreys along the river.

Oversight scattered

Few American rivers have been asked to do as much as the Columbia and its tributaries.

The river system provides recreation and drinking water and helps irrigate a quarter-million square miles of sage desert. It's a highway for farm goods. Thanks to 55 dams, it supplies the cheapest power in the nation, and a lot of it.

Yet unlike Puget Sound, which has been systematically monitored for years, the Columbia system is so huge and regulated by so many different entities that attempts to assess its health have been piecemeal at best.

"It's just unbelievable that all our information on the Columbia is scattered in about 20 different places," said the EPA's Soscia.

For instance, in 2005 the state Department of Ecology found that PCBs and DDT in the lower river regularly exceeded water-quality standards. But the study didn't examine the water upstream of Bonneville Dam, even though researchers believe most DDT is coming from agricultural land above Bonneville.

Meanwhile, large-scale cleanup projects on the Columbia proceed slowly.

The Army Corps of Engineers began investigating a landfill near Bonneville Dam 10 years ago, but it still isn't clean. Seven years ago, the Colville Confederated Tribes urged the EPA to find out whether mining pollution in the Upper Columbia was harming their health. The agency is still investigating.

"It's been our sense that Puget Sound gets far more attention with respect to water quality, restoration and basic protection," said Charles Hudson, spokesman for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission. "We sometimes feel Western Washington considers Eastern Washington a sacrifice zone."

In fact, it's often difficult to measure how much has really changed since a major study of the river concluded in the mid-1990s that the Columbia contains "potentially harmful levels" of toxics.

"Based on what I'm familiar with, I think levels in the Columbia are better than they were in the 1960s," said Lyndal Johnson, a toxicologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"But I don't think they've improved much in the last 10 years."

New look at pollution

The EPA, the tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington are hoping to change that.

In the past few years, they have tried coordinating studies to determine the extent of pollution in the river, from Canada to the Pacific.

Later this summer, the results of two detailed studies are expected. One looked at contaminants in the Columbia estuary. The other, by the federal Department of Energy, is a compilation of all available information on the health of the entire river.

And this year the Columbia was placed with Puget Sound, the Everglades, Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, Long Island Sound and the Gulf of Mexico on a list of the EPA's top water priorities for the next five years.

For now, that means the EPA expects to propose a series of small projects to clean up river sediment. Soscia said it also would work with Oregon to toughen water-quality standards to reduce the amount of pollution industries are allowed to spill into the river.

Some of the work already has begun.

A few years ago, Eugene Foster, an Oregon state toxicologist, began working with some farmers to help them cut back on agricultural runoff that was contaminating tributaries with chemicals and insecticide.

Now the orchardists are changing how and where they apply pesticides. They have been better managing how water passes over soil that still has DDT in it. And they are reducing pesticide concentrations.

Similar work has been done along the Yakima River, and both Washington and Oregon are slowly expanding those programs to other Columbia tributaries.

"We've got a marathon ahead of us," Soscia said.

But, "I've worked at EPA for 22 years," she added.

"This is the most important thing I could do in my last years at the agency."

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company


Informant: binstock

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/infowarsnews/message/974



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

Foundation for Economic Education
by Sheldon Richman

07/07/06

The freedom philosophy can be boiled down to two phrases: for equality, against privilege. Intuitively, this should sound uncontroversial. We just finished celebrating the Fourth of July, which commemorates the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson's elegant statement of the freedom philosophy proclaims: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' But since then the idea of equality has acquired many meanings that either work against the freedom philosophy or give it weak support. So how can it be a pillar of liberty?

http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=608


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Christian Science Monitor
by Daniel Schorr

07/07/06

In recent speeches at Republican fundraisers, President Bush has taken to criticizing the press for baring government secrets. The outgoing secretary of the Treasury, John Snow, in what may have been his last official act, wrote to The New York Times that in exposing the monitoring of bank transfers, it had undermined a successful counterterrorism program. A House resolution, passed by a party line vote, called on the media to safeguard classified programs. The government has discovered what governments have discovered before, that an undercurrent of hostility toward the news media runs through the country and that there could be political advantage in campaigning against the press in general...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0707/p09s01-cods.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

USA Today

07/09/06

The White House possibly broke the law by keeping intelligence activities a secret from the lawmakers responsible for overseeing them, the House Intelligence Committee chairman said Sunday. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said he was informed about the programs by whistle-blowers in the intelligence community and then asked the Bush administration about the programs, using code names. Hoekstra said members of the House and Senate intelligence committees then were briefed on the programs, which he said is required by law...

http://tinyurl.com/k2uu7


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

350 Millionen Euro Mehrumsatz hat die Deutsche Telekom durch die Fußball-WM gemacht. Doch die Arbeitsbedingungen der Mitarbeiter verschlechtern sich weiter. Artikel von Hans-Gerd Öfinger in junge Welt vom 10.07.2006 http://www.jungewelt.de/2006/07-10/013.php


Aus: LabourNet, 10. Juli 2006

Gipfel und Globalisierungsproteste > G-8-Gipfel im Sommer 2007 in Heiligendamm

Ausstellung gegen die G8

Ausstellung von Gegeninformationsbüro und Gruppe Arbeitermacht http://www.gegeninformationsbuero.de/frameset.html?/krieg/g8_2007_ausstellung.htm


Gegen Aufrüstung, Krieg und die Strategen der globalen Ausplünderung

Broschüren-Beitrag vom Gegeninformationsbüro für die AnwohnerInnen des diesjährigen G8-Camps vom 15. Juni 2006 http://www.gegeninformationsbuero.de/krieg/g8_2007_camp2006_beitrag.htm


Aus: LabourNet, 10. Juli 2006

In Schulen und Universitäten regieren immer mehr die Gesetze des Marktes. Öffentliche Lernorte sind durch neoliberale Reformen und finanzielle Auszehrung bedroht. Artikel von Clemens Knobloch in Freitag vom 7.7.06 http://www.freitag.de/2006/28/06280401.php


Aus: LabourNet, 10. Juli 2006

Die große Koalition hat sich darauf verständigt, daß Kinder von Familienunternehmern unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen ab 1. Januar 2007 keine betriebliche Erbschaftssteuer zahlen müssen. Gastkommentar von Christoph Butterwegge in junge Welt vom 10.07.2006 http://www.jungewelt.de/2006/07-10/014.php

Aus: LabourNet, 10. Juli 2006

„Der 31. Juli ist „Stichtag“ für viele Hartz IV-Betroffene. Dann sollten sie die vielleicht letzte Gelegenheit nutzen, um dringend benötigte oder nützliche Gebrauchsgüter, Bekleidung usw. anzuschaffen. Denn ab 1. August gelten für alle Arbeitslosengeld II-BezieherInnen geringere Freibeträge für frei verfügbares Vermögen... Das bedeutet für viele, dass sie ganz aus dem Leistungsbezug herausfliegen, weil dann ein Teil des Sparguthabens die neuen Freibeträge übersteigt. Mit der Neuregelung greift die große Koalition erneut in die Taschen der Erwerbslosen…“ Infoblatt der Kampagne „Vorsicht!Arbeitslosengeld II“
http://www.alg-2.info/info/vermoegen-schuetzen


Aus: LabourNet, 10. Juli 2006

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/10/wpacific10.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/07/10/ixnews.html


Informant: Kev Hall

By Lynn Jackson

DUTY OF CARE: Stourfield heads Emma Rawson (juniors, left) and Cathy Kirkham (infants), who are concerned about a planned phone mast at Warnford Road, across the railway line from the school, with pupils in the playground. Picture: Hattie Miles.

HEADTEACHERS at two Bournemouth schools are urging local people to fight plans for a new mobile phone mast a move which has "horrified" parents of youngsters at the schools.

Phone operator O2 wants to put up a 12.5 metre mobile mast on Warnford Road in Southbourne, disguised as a fake telegraph pole.

But the bid has shocked staff at nearby Stourfield Infant and Junior Schools, who fear the health of their pupils could be put at risk.

Headteacher at the infant school, Cathy Kirkham, said: "The children in my school are very young. continued...

"Nobody can be certain that such a mast will not have a detrimental effect on children's development and health."

Junior school headteacher Emma Rawson added: "Both schools are working exceedingly hard to fulfil the government agenda of Every Child Matters. This includes helping children to stay healthy and safe.

"We are well supported in this by our community and so plans to erect a mobile phone mast close to our schools have caused a fierce reaction from our parents."

The headteachers say their concerns about the plans are strengthened by evidence found in the government-commissioned Stewart Report on telecommunications, which suggests that children are more vulnerable to exposure and will absorb more energy from external electromagnetic fields than adults.

And parents of children at the schools are already joining the fight against the mast.

Mum Natalie McMullen, whose nine-year-old daughter attends Stourfield School, said: "I think it's disgusting that they want to put this mast so close to the school and houses.

"All the mums I've talked to are horrified about this. My daughter has only two more years at the school, but I feel for the children who are in the infants."

Phone operator O2 said it chose the mast site on Warnford Road after rejecting several other potential locations that were even closer to the school.

The company also says it did not consult with the schools before submitting its planning proposal to Bournemouth council as they were not within 200m of the mast.

The Stewart Report identified the area between 50m to 200m from the base of a mast as where the signals will be at their strongest.

It recommended that both the school and local authority should be consulted if a mast is sited within this distance from schools.

Both Stourfield headteachers say they intend to go along to a meeting of Bournemouth council's planning board on July 17 to "do all they can to exercise their duty of care and protect their pupils and staff".

10:38am today

© Copyright 2001-2006 Newsquest Media Group

http://www.thisisdorset.net/display.var.825340.0.headteachers_add_weight_to_fight_against_mobile_mast.php

The Republican plan to privatize Social Security could cause huge debt for decades, a Democratic candidate seeking a House seat in Iowa, a state with a high concentration of elderly residents, said Saturday.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070906H.shtml

David Bowker vividly remembers the first time he heard the phrase. A lawyer in the State Department, Bowker was part of a Bush administration "working group" assembled in the panicked aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Its task: figuring out what rights captured foreign fighters and terror suspects were entitled to while in US custody. White House hard-liners, led by Vice President Dick Cheney and his uncompromising lawyer, David Addington, made it clear that there was only one acceptable answer. One day, Bowker recalls, a colleague explained the goal: to "find the legal equivalent of outer space" - a "lawless" universe. As Bowker understood it, the idea was to create a system where detainees would have no legal rights and US courts would have no power to intervene.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070906F.shtml



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

The New York Times says Congress, which is supposed to push back against executive attempts to amass overweening power, has hardly played its proper role when it comes to George W. Bush. In the past, when evidence arose that the president had overstepped his authority, the Congressional response was generally to look for ways to make whatever Mr. Bush did retroactively legal. But the Supreme Court's decision on the Guantanamo Bay detention camp seems to have jolted even some of the most loyal Republicans back to reality. They are vowing that this time, they will not merely rubber-stamp presidential overreaching. Soon, Americans will get a sense of how seriously to take this newfound spine.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070906D.shtml

In 27 cities across the United States, seriously injured accident victims could end up in a medical experiment, without their knowledge or consent.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/07/artifical_blood.html


From Information Clearing House

With God on Our Side

Video

George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right in America : It shows how we came to have a president who believes, in the words of one commentator, that "he and his country have a special relationship with God" -- New York Times.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13162.htm



House GOP Tries to Shrug Off Setbacks

Could a Republican-controlled Congress, pass a bill to protect the words "under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance from court challenges?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5939881,00.html


From Information Clearing House

For more than a decade, Grover G. Norquist has been at the nexus of conservative activism in Washington, becoming a Bush administration insider whose weekly strategy sessions at his Americans for Tax Reform have drawn ever-larger crowds of lawmakers, lobbyists and even White House political adviser Karl Rove.

http://tinyurl.com/qcnxs


From Information Clearing House

While the US government talks of “election monitoring” there are many who believe that we in the US and in Nicaragua should be monitoring the US government’s involvement in the up-coming Nicaraguan elections.

http://www.nicanet.org/stop_US_intervention.php



Carter calls for “no foreign influence” in Nicaragua

Carter criticized the U.S. government which only considers two of the five Nicaraguan presidential hopefuls as “acceptable”, and also raised the issue of another country, he did not name, which is financially supporting some of the Nicaraguan municipalities ruled by the leftist Sandinista party.

http://www.falkland-malvinas.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=8276



From Information Clearing House

On May 20, 2004, US President George W Bush disclosed with great fanfare his plan to annex Cuba. The massive 450-page creation elicited a wave of criticism from around the world.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13925.htm

CIA operative talks frankly about opportunities missed in the search for America's Most Wanted, why he believes successive American governments have been characterised by "moral cowardice", and how close to "Mission Impossible" the reality of being a spy really is...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13924.htm

This administration never holds anyone in senior positions accountable for derelict performance. However, unless there is full accountability for the war crimes of Iraq - wherever the evidence leads - there is a high probability that the lessons today's lieutenants and captains need to learn about the law of war and command leadership will never be sufficiently absorbed.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4028285


From Information Clearing House

SENIOR US marine officers failed to carry out a proper investigation into reports that troops had killed civilians in Haditha, according to Lieutenant-General Peter Chiarelli, the second highest ranking commander in Iraq.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2261859,00.html


From Information Clearing House



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

Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13927.htm

By Andrew Stephen

In the murky basement of his home in Washington's affluent Georgetown district, Andrew Stephen makes a discovery that leads him to some terrible truths about America, past and present.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13930.htm

America's war on terror is a logical impossibility

Video Leacture By Noam Chomsky

The U.S. government has been, and continues to be, a major supporter of state-supported terrorism, favoring retaliatory or preemptive aggression over mediation in the world court, and avoiding accountability by excluding itself from the globally accepted definition of terrorism.

Click here to watch
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13936.htm

By Ruth Keeling

A mobile phone company has lodged an appeal after Oxford City Council refused to allow it to put up a pine tree-shaped mobile phone mast.

Vodafone was told in February that the appearance of the 15m mast was inappropriate and that the site it had chosen near the Oxsrad Sports Centre in Marsh Lane, Marston, was also not suitable.

It is the latest in a long line of applications and appeals by companies which want to put up masts in the area to improve their service. continued...

In March, the planning inspectorate upheld the council's claim that a Vodafone mast, planned for the corner of Jack Straw's Lane and Marston Road, would be poorly situated next to a busy cycle path and bus shelter.

But he did not agree with the council's claim that the company had not properly investigated sharing a site with other mobile companies.

In the same month, the inspector refused T-Mobile's plan for a 12m mast outside Marston Medical Centre in Cherwell Drive, which was to look like a telegraph pole.

An application by the same company for a 10m mast at the same site was also refused by the city council after more than 1,000 people signed a petition against the idea.

Plans for 3 Mobile to erect a mast on the roof of St Michael and All Angel's Church, in Marston Road, have also been dropped, according to curate Rosemary Rycraft.

Labour city councillor for Marston Mary Clarkson said: "They just keep on and on. It is annoying because they don't seem to be following the code of practice.

"What I'd like to see them do is going away to talk to other operators and try to find a site to share."

She was optimistic that the planning inspectorate would uphold the council's latest refusal. She said: "We have got several grounds for refusing and I am hoping that the visual impact will stand up.

"The mast design looks quite silly and is quite obviously not a tree."

Vodafone spokesman Rob Matthews said: "Vodafone doesn't take the decision to appeal lightly and we undertook a thorough review of the reasons for the refusal.

"We do not agree with the reasons for refusal and feel that this site will not be visually intrusive as it blends in with surrounding tree cover.

"We have undertaken a thorough review of all potential site sharing options, none of which were suitable."

9:11am Friday 7th July 2006

© Copyright 2001-2006 Newsquest Media Group

http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headlines/display.var.822984.0.company_appeals_for_mast.php

by Devvy Kidd

The author of the above column brings out some good points, but she is woefully ignorant about how the FED actually works and she doesn't really tell the full story on what's going to happen when that first wave of baby boomers begin to retire in less than two years.....

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd199.htm

by Professor Steven Yates

Only we can change things—if we wake up! For the moment (thanks to the Internet) mainstream media corporations do not control the flow of information. Word about America: Freedom to Fascism is spreading. Thanks to a growing network, Americans will have the opportunity to see this film this summer in large numbers. It will open in selected theaters in New York, Chicago.....

http://www.newswithviews.com/Yates/steven20.htm

http://www.lewrockwell.com/prather/prather50.html

--------

Gordon Prather: Condi vs. the Truth

Condi strong-armed the IAEA Board into improperly and illegally seeking to involve the U.N. Security Council in the Iran-Board confrontation.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13949.htm

http://tinyurl.com/galwa


Informant: Lew Rockwell



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

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese291.html

--------

Tell Bush, Cheney, and Congress: U.S. HANDS OFF KOREA!

Sign the petition online.

Please join our online campaign to demand U.S. HANDS OFF KOREA, by sending emails to President Bush, your senators, your congressperson, key congressional leaders and the media telling them you want the U.S. to end its warmongering campaign against Korea NOW!

The text of our online petition is below:

President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, Secretary-General Annan, and Congressional Leaders,

I am writing this letter to oppose the current international warmongering campaign against Korea being carried out by the U.S. government, and to demand that it end immediately!

With the recent routine testing of 7 missiles by the DPRK, the Bush Administration is working overtime to gather international support for sanctions and other hostile actions towards North Korea.

It is important to put the launch of the missiles in perspective to see which country is the real threat to peace in the region.

The DPRK tested 7 missiles, one of them the Taepodong-2 missile. The others were short-range Scud and medium-range Rodong missiles. These tests violated no international law and were completely within that country’s rights as a sovereign state. These sorts of tests are conducted all the time by many countries.

Even the New York Times, in a July 5 editorial, had to admit that, "Since the test poses no direct security threat, and violates no international treaty, there is no justification for any military response, by the United States or anyone else."

The testing of 7 small rockets by the DPRK pales in comparison with the massive military mobilization by the U.S.

On June 14, the U.S. Air Force held “a quality control test” for its 500 Minuteman III missiles. One of these missiles traveled 4,800 miles towards the central Pacific, and three test warheads landed near the Marshall Islands.

At the same time, three U.S. Navy carrier battle groups—including three aircraft carriers, 22,000 troops, dozens of fighter planes and several heavy bombers —were assembled in the western Pacific off Guam in the largest naval mobilization since the Vietnam War. The USS Curtis Wilbur and the USS Fitzgerald, both guided-missile destroyers with massive destructive capacity sit right off the coast of North Korea. The U.S. also sent spy planes on 170 missions over North Korea. Just hours ago, the USS Martin, a 9,200-ton guided missile destroyer with the Navy's most advanced combat weapon system arrived in the region as a direct challenge to the DPRK.

The U.S. still has more than 30,000 troops stationed in South Korea despite widespread, militant opposition to them. Its claims that the troops are there to protect the south from the north are rejected by the majority of southerners. In fact, there have been massive demonstrations against the U.S. military presence.

It's important to remember that President George W. Bush named the DPRK, along with Iraq and Iran, as one of the “axis of evil.” As the whole world witnesses the torture, rape, and murder that "regime change" has brought to the people of Iraq, the DPRK has every reason to be concerned and has every right to take necessary steps to defend itself.

The DRPK has tried repeatedly to get the U.S. to end the state of war that still exists since the 1950-53 Korean War and to sign a peace treaty that would normalize relations between the two countries. The U.S. always refuses. The U.S. war on the Korean Peninsula resulted in the death of 4 million Korean people and the division and continuing U.S. occupation of the country to this day.

Considering the U.S. missile test, the military maneuvers, and the constant stream of threats against the DPRK from both the Republican administration and the Democratic Party leaders, it is quite clear that the Pyongyang government faces a serious threat from the most belligerent and heavily armed military in the world.

As part of the media hype to demonize and isolate the DPRK, Bush and his media mouthpieces have raised the specter of North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons. Again, this must be put into perspective. The U.S. stockpile contains almost 10,000 nuclear warheads. This includes 5,735 active or operational warheads: 5,235 strategic and 500 nonstrategic warheads. The U.S. also has approximately 4,225 additional warheads held in the reserve or inactive stockpiles.

The U.S. is also the only country to ever use nuclear weapons against civilian targets. The Bush Administration has also made it very clear that it considers use of nuclear weapons is acceptable in its global crusade of regime change.

I reject the use of "weapons of mass destruction" as justification for a campaign of sanctions and hostility against the people of North Korea.

I denounce this fabricated crisis as just the latest in a string of distortions generated by Washington to justify its program of endless war.

I demand:

- An end to Washington's campaign of lies and hostility towards the people of North Korea.

- An end to the military operations targeting North Korea.

- That the U.S. end the state of war with North Korea that has lasted more than 50 years.

- The immediate withdrawal of the U.S. naval carrier groups deployed against the DPRK.

Sincerely,

Sign the petition online.
(Your signature will be appended here based on the contact information you enter online)

Sign the petition online - http://www.iacenter.org/koreacampaign.shtml

--------

West mounts 'secret war' to keep nuclear North Korea in check

Intelligence agencies, navies and air forces from at least 13 nations are quietly co-operating in a “secret war” against Pyongyang and Tehran.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13934.htm

--------

Let Asia deal with Kim Jong-Il

Today, and for years to come, North Korea poses no missile threat to the U.S. homeland. Indeed, the world market for North Korean missiles probably tanked a bit on July 5, especially as one of Kim's shorter-range rockets almost landed on Mother Russia.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13935.htm