HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

Ashrawi delivers message of hope

Apart from some minor scuffles between a handful of Palestinian supporters and pro-Jewish students before the lecture, Palestinian advocate Dr Hanan Ashrawi had a captive audience of almost 600 people.
The activist of more than four decades received a standing ovation as she entered the room and she acknowledged a bouquet of flowers from the group, Jews Against the Occupation.
Hanan Ashrawi, whose 2003 Sydney Peace Prize drew so much hostility in advance, was received warmly in Sydney last night, in what she called "this luminous instant in history".
During her speech she said the protests against her receiving a peace prize were the result of petty hatred. Dr Ashrawi said she was surprised by the hate stirred in Sydney but that she had received more positive than negative responses to her prize win.
She opposed a simplistic view which divided the world into stereotypes of good and evil, urging instead diversity and collective responsibility under international law. She held out the promise that a just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict would unleash forces for good, democracy, regional integration and sustainable progress.

WAR RUMOURS

US warplanes overfly Scotland to ... ?

Since Saturday, people in the Highlands of Scotland have been witnessing large movements of US warplanes overhead. Experienced observers say the large numbers are reminiscent of those that preceded the bombing of Iraq in 1998 and military strikes on Libya in the1980's as well as the first Gulf War.
It is thought that the planes have flown on a route from the US over the north pole to bases in Europe and the Mediterranean. The size and scale of the movement suggests that the US may be preparing to strike at a country in the Middle East in the next week to ten days.
Peacewatchers at USAF’s Fairford and Welford bases in the UK report that warplanes were flying over at a rate of roughly one every 15 minutes at the weekend. As well as watching them from the ground the plane spotters have also been able to overhear pilots talking by listening to their radio frequencies.

[There were some strong reactions against the claims made above with some claiming it is purely anti-American rhetoric. However other comments on the portland.indymedia.org website included the following:
"I live near a major US AFB. The sorties overhead are unbelievable. ( Unprecedented. I have lived here for 20+ years). They fly one after the other day & NIGHT, no matter how late at night it is. They are up to something." and
"This afternoon I visited a friend who has a 20's-something son in the U.S. Air Force. The son has a job that is obviously one calling for security clearances, and the father & son have a pre-arranged code that is rather simple as they are aware that the son's phone calls are likely monitored. According to my friend, he got the coded message that something BIG is indeed about to take place. Something really big, and he got no clue as to what it is, just that our government is taking a lot of massive effort to gear up for it." and
"My daughter works at the Pentagon and she e-mails me daily with short note from her office during her lunch break. Today's message had this: 'Mom, how is Aunt Bertha?...Is Aunt Bertha getting any better?...Please give Aunt Bertha a hug 'n' kiss for me next time you see her...I've always dearly loved Aunt Bertha!' Sounds like innocent ramblings to most I'm sure. However, Aunt Bertha died 12 years ago, and this is our little code that something nasty is about to take place. Whenever the name Aunt Bertha comes up, and depending on the number of times it's used, then I'm given advance warning that something is going to happen. Last time I got one with four mentions of Aunt Bertha is the Friday before 9-11. So guess we'd better get ready, cause the BIG BERTHA is coming."
So, it could be some bored jokesters posting these messages, or indeed some conintel pros, or they could be real warning signs. Signs that the Bush Reich is preparing to shore up flagging support with another Reichstag fire similar to 9/11.]

CANNON FODDER

Military draft always on the agenda in US

Some US citizens may labour onder the misapprehension that the draft is something to read about in history books.
The Selective Service System wants to hear from men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board. If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men, who submit a claim, receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service.
If a draft is authorized, a lottery based on birthdays determines the order in which registered men are called up by Selective Service.

[Conscientious objectors take note: Beliefs which qualify a registrant for CO status may be religious in nature, but don't have to be. Beliefs may be moral or ethical; however, a man's reasons for not wanting to participate in a war must not be based on politics, expediency, or self-interest. In general, the man's lifestyle prior to making his claim must reflect his current claims.]

MORAL DECAY

Race to save new victims of child porn

Computer file sharing has sent paedophile demand for real-time images soaring. But police can often only watch as children grow older and continue to be abused.
Detectives rely on two methods of tracing location: electronic footprints left by the user while online and forensic analysis of the images to find clues pointing to the country of origin, such as telephone books in the background or the style of furnishings. In some cases, often where the child is being held prisoner and abused in a completely blank room, there are not enough leads for police to chase. One case being investigated involves a prepubescent girl who is being held prisoner in a room and repeatedly abused. International law enforcement agencies know only that she is in the United States and the FBI is trying to pinpoint her exactlocation. New images of the child are shared through KaZaA and other services but police have been unable to find her.

[EU elite are filthy pigs, says Bossi: Italy's reform minister, Umberto Bossi said the European Union's elite are "filthy pigs" who wanted to "make paedophilia as easy as possible".]

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Space weather gone crazy: another historic flare

Just as solar scientists were ready to start breathing normally again, active region 10486 blasted off yet another mega-flare. This one saturated the X-ray detectors on the NOAA's GOES satellites; the jury is therefore out on the definitive classification of the flare, but from a subjective judgement of the data found on the NOAA SEC's space weather pages (and links therein, we estimate that it must have been well above 20.
This also happened once earlier in SOHO's history, on 4 April 2001. That flare was reclassified as an X20.
A very preliminary estimate based on just 3 images of the associated CME came out at about 2300 km/second. Although part of the CME is directed towards Earth, we will receive only a glancing blow, since the source region is right on the limb of the Sun as seen from Earth.

[See SOHO images. Recent stories: Solar flare hits Earth; light show in Perth and Massive solar flare may wreak havoc here.]

EARTH CHANGES

Mother Nature, the newest scapegoat, says Suzuki

As a result of tumultuous weather and geological events, thousands of people have been evacuated, hundreds have lost their homes, many have lost their jobs and a few have even lost their lives. So it's only natural for people to be looking for a scapegoat. Someone or something to point the finger at and say - you! It was your fault! Yet I was still quite taken aback when my local newspaper bizarrely chose to blame Mother Nature.
A lead editorial in the Vancouver Sun likens Mother Nature to Mommy Dearest, claims that 'our culture has a history of viewing nature as benign, as the wellspring from which all good things come,' and argues that 'it's time to relieve ourselves of the notion that everything natural is good.'
The intent of the editorial, it seems, is to remove any hint of human culpability from the disasters that have gripped the province. Never mind that the extreme weather events and insect infestations British Columbia has been experiencing are exactly what scientists have been telling us for years are the kind of thing we will be seeing more and more of if we don't stop pumping increasing amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. Instead, the editorial seeks to frame the world as "nature vs humans" as though the two entities are fundamentally different and at odds. In such a world, whatever people do to shore up their defenses against the dangers of nature could be seen as justifiable.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Flag blunder embarrasses Pentagon

The US embassy in Bucharest had to apologise to the president of Romania, Ion Iliescu, for the Pentagon decorating his table with a Russian flag when he lunched with US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier this week.
Romania's influential Evenimentul Zilei newspaper poked fun at the mistake. Alongside a photograph of the lunch, clearly showing Russian and US flags intertwined in the space between Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Iliescu, ran the headline "Memories are coming back to haunt me", the Associated Press reported.

[Yesterday Mr Rumsfeld answered a question from a journalist on warlords in Afghanistan by talking about Kurdish peshmerga fighters in Iraq until it was pointed out that that was a different country. "Oh, I'm sorry ... I was thinking of Iraq. No wonder I couldn't understand it," he explained.]

STATE BARBARISM

Sudanese boy faces double amputation after 'unfair' robbery trial

A Sudanese boy of 16 is to have his right hand and left foot amputated by a court order that human rights campaigners have denounced as barbaric.
Launching an urgent appeal on behalf of Mohamed Hassan Hamdan, Amnesty International said yesterday that the penalty, known as 'cross amputation' is tantamount to torture.

BLOOD SPORT

'Rich killers' stalk City of Lost Girls

Ciudad Juarez is known as 'the city of the dead girls'. In 10 years almost 400 women have been murdered in this city on the border between Mexico and El Paso, Texas, and the killings continue. Now a courageous Mexican-American journalist is alleging a group of six businessmen is behind the slaughter. Described as 'untouchables', their wealth puts them above the law. Their motive is said to be blood sport.
The rise of the cartel coincided with the feminicido, the female murders. The first victim was Angelica Luna Villalobos; her body was dumped in the Alta Vista neighbourhood in 1993.
Since then, 370 women have been killed. Some deaths may be attributed to domestic violence or random crime. But more than a third of the women were raped before death. Most victims are tortured and mutilated. Sometimes the killer leaves a signature; a breast or a nipple is sliced off. The bodies are then dumped in wasteland.
The average age of the victims is 16; all were poor. Their deaths, says Amnesty International, 'have no political cost to the authorities'. Many suspects are in custody, but the killings go on.

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Flak again fired at Enola Gay, WWII exhibit

When Smithsonian Institution officials unveiled a home for the World War II bomber Enola Gay in August, they had hoped to avoid the kind of controversy that had plagued efforts to exhibit the airplane that carried the first atomic bomb.
Scholars, writers and activists have signed a petition criticizing the exhibit for labeling Enola Gay as 'the largest and most technologically advanced airplane for its time' without mentioning that it dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
'You wouldn't display a slave ship solely as a model of technological advancement,' said David Nasaw, a cultural historian at the City University of New York Graduate Center and one of 100 petition signers. 'It would be offensive not to put it in context.'

The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki announced that the US was henceforth the supreme armed power in the world. The attack of September 11 announced that this power was no longer guaranteed invulnerability on its home ground. The two events mark the beginning and end of a certain historical period. The attack on Hiroshima paved the way for September 11 and its aftermath.

[Previous story: Hiroshima bomber goes on show, without pesky "human' details..]

TRUTH NO DEFENCE

Man remanded on bail for US embassy slight

Bruce Hubbard has been remanded on bail for allegedly offending the United States Embassy. Hubbard appeared in the North Shore District Court today charged with misusing a telephone. Hubbard allegedly offended a US Embassy worker, Tessa Brown, by suggesting in an email that the United States had napalmed civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, that the United States had invaded 72 countries since the end of WWII, and that there were similarities between the current US Bush Administration and Nazi Germany.
The Embassy subsequently made a complaint to the New Zealand Police, an investigation was initiated resulting in Hubbard’s arrest Thursday.

['The arrest of Auckland Peace activist Bruce Hubbard for sending an email to the United States Embassy is a chilling reminder that freedom of speech is being attacked by the new Counter-terrorism legislation. The email was in protest of the illegal invasion of Iraq' said Peace Action Wellington member Valerie Morse.]

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Thousands riot in China after vendor killed by government officials

Thousands of people in east China's Shandong province rioted last week, storming a government building and smashing equipment after an official vehicle ran over and killed a vendor, a human rights group and residents said.
The riot -- one of the largest in recent years -- occurred a day after a confrontation between officials and a man selling fresh pancakes from a roving stove-wagon in Zhoucheng city.
The previous day, the vendor was selling the popular egg and onion pancakes when some employees from the "city management" department confiscated his wagon and loaded it onto their vehicle, sources said. Shao -- seeing his source of livelihood being carted away -- blocked the vehicle's path. He was run over as a crowd watched, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.

EUROPEAN OVERDOSE

A tide of heroin floods through Tajikistan to the West

Hampered by poor resources, border guards in the impoverished former Soviet state of Tajikistan are losing the battle to stem the tide as heroin from Afghanistan pours through Central Asia on its way to Britain. More than 90 per cent of heroin sold in Britain comes from Afghanistan, according to the UN. Heroin is pouring through Tajikistan, the poorest country in the former Soviet Union, because anti-terrorism operations in southern Afghanistan make it difficult for smugglers to cross into Pakistan and Iran.
Drug control forces seized 4.4 tons of heroin - more than double their haul for the same period last year - but it is just one tenth of the total amount being smuggled, law enforcement officials believe.
Cultivation of opium poppies, the raw material for heroin, was banned in Afghanistan by the Taliban, but production has rocketed since the regime was driven from power.

SECRET WEAPON

‘Something’ felled an M1A1 Abrams tank in Iraq – but what?

Shortly before dawn on Aug. 28, an M1A1 Abrams tank on routine patrol in Baghdad “was hit by something” that crippled the 69-ton behemoth. Army officials still are puzzling over what that “something” was.
According to an unclassified Army report, the mystery projectile punched through the vehicle’s skirt and drilled a pencil-sized hole through the hull. The hole was so small that “my little finger will not go into it,” the report’s author noted.
The “something” continued into the crew compartment, where it passed through the gunner’s seatback, grazed the kidney area of the gunner’s flak jacket and finally came to rest after boring a hole 1½ to 2 inches deep in the hull on the far side of the tank. As it passed through the interior, it hit enough critical components to knock the tank out of action.

PROPAGANDA CENTRAL

The bigger the crisis, the bigger the lies

In his opening remarks Bush presented a view of events ludicrously at odds with reality. Citing America’s “continuing work in Afghanistan and Iraq,” the president declared: “The world is safer today because Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are gone.” This under conditions of a growing guerrilla war in Afghanistan and the single most bloody day of anti-US violence in Baghdad since the beginning of the American occupation.

[The contrast between rhetoric and reality reached new heights at the press conference held by President Bush October 28. It was Bush's first news conference since July 30 and only the second since early March, several weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq. ]

US AMBUSH

Presidential ambush of Australian Parliament

James Grubel may not be the most high-profile member of the Canberra press gallery, but he's certainly one of the most influential. As chief political correspondent for Australian Associated Press, the national wire service, Grubel's labours are seen and often published by every newspaper in the land. A friendly and diligent journalist, Grubel isn't much prone to hyperbole. But his summary of last week's whirlwind presidential visit is tinged with anger.
"George W. Bush's 21 hours in Australia was more like an American invasion than a visit, particularly as far as the media was concerned," says Grubel.
Several press gallery reporters complained of being disciplined by officials when they struck up conversations with US journalists.
"They tried to keep us apart behind these silly lines, and when an AAP reporter started chatting with an American an official came over and separated them," according to Fleur Anderson from the News Limited bureau. "It was very strange. They were asking, what are you doing? Are you trying to interview the Americans? That's not allowed?"

CASHLESS SOCIETY

Smart card a dumb idea, Aboriginal leader says

Smartcards are part of a proposal by acting ATSIC Chairman Lionel Quartermaine, who wants to see tighter restrictions placed on how welfare payments are spent. But the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission's western New South Wales commissioner Steve Gordon says it is "self- determination", not "smart cards" that helps Indigenous people take control of their future.
"I believe it's going against human rights," he said. "How would you like to have a card and you can only go and buy clothes or get meals.

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Solar flare hits Earth; light show in Perth

A shockwave from the Sun has hit the Earth, causing a rare phenomenon in the southern skies near Perth, Australia. Perth Observatory director James Biggs says he observed an aurora, seen as whitish milky light in the sky.
"From about 2:30 to about 3:40 there was a bit of a glow towards the south in the sky, reasonably high up," he said.
"Until about 3:30 there was definitely a glow with some dark stripes in it. That was the aurora."
Dr Biggs says the aurora is very rare.
Dr Fred Watson from the Anglo-Australian Observatory at Coonabarabran in north-west New South Wales says auroras may be visible elsewhere over Australia over the next few nights. [Recent news.]

RIGHTS TRASHED

Activists ask City of Orlando to oppose Patriot Act

A group of political activists has asked Orlando to join a growing list of cities that oppose the Patriot Act. The post-September 11th law was passed to help put terrorists behind bars, but Monday the Orlando City Council heard from people who say America is losing too many rights.
They planned to propose a proclamation in opposition to the Patriot Act. But the activists realized they didn't have enough support for their cause. So instead, they tried to sell the council on an education campaign they say would show good Americans that the Patriot Act is bad for America.
"By dismantling the Bill of Rights, the Patriot Act and its authors have opened up a Pandora's box of possible abuses," comments activist Cinde Roberts.
"This is supposed to be the land of the free, home of the brave, not land of the scared, home of the jailed," says activist Michelle Power.
But the pleas seemingly fell on deaf ears. After the meeting, even personal pleas didn't work. The mayor says the city is not getting into this kind of debate.

BIG PHARMA

Doctors continue antidepressant prescriptions despite suicide warning

Health Canada warned in July that antidepressants Paxil and Effexor should not be prescribed to anyone under 18 years of age because they may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts.
But sales of the drugs have dropped only slightly since then, which suggests that doctors haven't changed how they prescribe the drugs.
The new research suggests teens are at higher risk of thinking about suicide only when they first start taking the drugs.
Dr. David Healy, a world-renowned expert on antidepressants, says doctors need more extensive research on the effects of antidepressants on teens. But Healy says he's doubtful drug companies will conduct those studies because they may show increased risk of suicidal thoughts and may affect sales to adults as well.
Healy's expert testimony in last year's civil trial involving Paxil was one of the deciding factors in the plaintiff's jury victory in that case. Wyoming resident Donald Schell, 60, killed his wife, daughter and granddaughter and then himself with a gun in 1998 after only two days on Paxil.
The decisive factor in the case was the company's own internal data demonstrating that they knew Paxil could cause agitation and suicidal ideation in research subjects.
Two weeks after the verdict in the Paxil trial, Houston area mother and convicted murderer Andrea Yates drowned her five children while she was on not one, but two antidepressant "camisoles chimique".
What could have been an opportunity for the mass media to educate the public about the dangers of antidepressant drugs, instead has been a non-stop awareness campaign for the mental health industry about the need for more psychiatric "treatment".