Antiwar hecklers ruffle Bush hawk
One of the leading members of the Bush administration has come under fire
at an American university only days after resistance fighters blasted
his Baghdad hotel with a rocket attack.
US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz was visibly shaken as he fended
off hecklers at Georgetown University during a speech.
The smooth-talking politician, who kept his cool under fire in Baghdad
some days earlier, appeared ruffled and at one point snapped back at the
hecklers.
We hate your policies! shouted one young woman, standing ten
meters from Wolfowitz who went pale and clenched his jaw.
Two other students among the dozen that had lined up to speak to the man
held up as the Bush administration mastermind of the Iraq war also attacked
US policy there.
A visibly shaken Wolfowitz caught his breath to tell one of them, You
and I should both calm down.
He later said that the Iraq war was not an ideological, but a moral
issue.
There is not much question in my mind about the morality of having
gotten rid of this regime. (Aljazeera.Net)
Senate faults White House over Iraq documents
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee singled out
the White House for failing to meet a noon deadline on Nov. 1 to turn
over documents about intelligence on Iraqs weapons of mass destruction
used to justify the US invasion.
But Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas said the CIA and State Department had provided
a good faith response and the committee expected to receive
a quantity of documents from both agencies by the end of the
day.
The Senate Intelligence Committee this week sent letters to top administration
officials demanding documents be turned over and interviews with officials
be scheduled by the deadline.
Congressional officials said that step was intended to prod the administration
to provide information the panel had requested as long as five months
ago for its review of the quality of US intelligence on Iraq leading up
to the war.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that even though the Senate
committee has no jurisdiction over the White House, it has been working
to help with the panels Iraq review. We are talking with them
and we will continue working with them, he said from Crawford, Texas.
Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee want to finish the review
by year-end and focus on the intelligence agencies, while Democrats are
seeking a broader scope to include a look at how the White House used
the intelligence. (Reuters)
Senate boosts AIDS funding over Bush objections
Rejecting calls by President Bush, the Senate voted 89-1 to approve an
amendment to the $18.4 billion foreign-aid bill for 2004 that will add
almost $300 million dollars to the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
If approved by a House-Senate conference committee, which will hash out
their different versions of the underlying bill over the coming days,
the Senate action would make $2.4 billion available to anti-AIDS programs,
particularly in Africa and the Caribbean, in the coming year.
The House version caps anti-AIDS spending at $2.1 billion, the amount
that Bush asked for in his initial budget request last winter.
The Senate vote was hailed by AIDS activists as a major victory in their
fight to have Washington contribute more money to containing and eventually
rolling back the disease, which is currently killing about 8,000 people
worldwide every day.
At the same time, activists warned that getting the additional $289 million
approved by the Senate past the conference committee may prove a difficult
fight in light of the Republican leaderships stronger loyalty to
Bush in the House of Representatives. (OneWorld)
Security agency displays ID system, a work in progress
The public got its first look on Oct. 28 at fingerprinting and photo equipment
that will be installed at 115 airports and 14 seaports to check identities
of millions of foreign visitors.
The equipment, which goes into use Jan. 5, will allow inspectors to check
identities of visitors against those on terrorist watch lists.
The system consists of a small box that digitally scans fingerprints,
and a spherical computer camera that snaps pictures. It will be used for
the estimated 24 million foreigners traveling on tourist, business and
student visas who enter through an airport or seaport.
The exit portion of the system - to ensure that visitors leave
when required - is still being developed, but officials showed off an
electronic kiosk, much like those used to dispense e-tickets at airports.
The kiosk would allow foreigners to scan documents and provide fingerprints
as they leave.
A General Accounting Office report issued last month called the system
a very risky endeavor with daunting goals, likely high costs,
and details that had yet to be worked out. The GAO said the system could
lead to long lines at ports of entry. (AP)
Number of hungry families in US rising
About 12 million American families last year worried that they couldnt
afford to buy food, and 32 percent of them actually experienced someone
going hungry at one time or another, the Agriculture Department said on
Nov.1.
It was the third year in a row that the department has seen an increase
in the number of households experiencing hunger and those worried about
having enough money to pay for food.
Based on a Census Bureau survey of 50,000 households, the department estimated
that 3.8 million families were hungry last year to the point where someone
in the household skipped meals because they couldnt afford them.
Thats an 8.6 percent increase from 2001, when 3.5 million families
were hungry, and a 13 percent increase from 2000.
Also, more and more families are unsure if they can afford to eat or dont
have enough food in their cupboards.
Last year, 11 percent of 108 million families were in that situation.
Thats up 5 percent from 2001 and 8 percent from 2000. Most poor
families struggling with hunger tried to ensure their children are fed,
the report said. Nonetheless, one or more children in an estimated 265,000
families on occasion missed meals last year because the families either
couldnt afford to eat or didnt have enough food at home.
The Agriculture Department said surveys since 1995 show that low-income
households most likely to suffer from hunger are Hispanic and black, single-mother
families, and those in inner cities and southern and western states. (AP)
Report indicates Blacks and Latinos incarcerated at
record rates
Kweisi Mfume, President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP), called on Oct. 23 for racial/ethnic impact
studies to document the overrepresentation of African Americans and Hispanics
in Maryland prisons. Mfumes comments are based on a report released
today by the Justice Policy Institute titled, Race and Incarceration
in Maryland.
The study cites African Americans comprise 28percent of the general population,
but total 76% of the prison population. African American men in Maryland
are imprisoned at nearly eight times the rate of white men. As for drug
offenses, whites and African Americans use drugs at similar rates, but
Blacks represent 68percent of those arrested, and 90percent of those incarcerated.
The report recommends updating parole practices to include increased access
to treatment and its duration, return sentencing discretion to judges
by abolishing mandatory sentences, create racial and ethnic impact
statements that would require lawmakers to mandate a quantitative
analysis of the affects the new laws have on people of color and society
at large. (NAACP)
Inuit battle to shut US air base
Inuit hunters are to ask Denmarks Supreme Court on Monday to close
down one of Americas most secretive and strategically important
military bases.
The Inuit claim they were illegally evicted from traditional grounds in
northern Greenland and they are demanding the right of return.
The US would like to use Thule air base as a site for the controversial
Star Wars National Missile Defense System.
Lawyers representing the Inuit claim that their very survival is at stake
as the territory to which they were exiled no longer has sufficient food
stocks to sustain them.
In 1953 the Danish authorities forcibly evicted the Inuit from their ancestral
lands in Northern Greenland where for thousands of years they hunted whales,
polar bears and other arctic creatures.
Their removal enabled the Americans to establish a vital arctic outpost.
Four years ago, a Danish High Court ruled that the Inuit had been illegally
exiled but denied them the right of return.
The Supreme Court justices now have to decide whether or not they have
the legal right to go home.
The Inuits lawyers believe if they win the Danish authorities may
have to order the Americans to move their base.
Since the Cold War ended Thule has evolved into Americas ear on
the northern hemisphere.
The Americans will not be represented in court as this dispute is technically
between the Inuit and the Danish Government but a spokesman for the US
embassy in Copenhagen said it was keeping a close eye on the case. (BBC)
House nixes anti-profiteering
penalties in Iraq spending bill
The final version of the $87 billion spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan
is missing provisions the Senate had passed to penalize war profiteers
who defraud American taxpayers. House negotiators on the package refused
to accept the Senate provisions.
The Senate provision was authored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Dianne
Feinstein (D-CA), and Richard Durbin (D-IL). It was one of the last major
sticking points this week as negotiators worked through the compromise
appropriations bill. The conferees narrowly defeated the amendment after
lengthy debate, with House negotiators offering no substitute and no willingness
to compromise, despite repeated offers from Senate conferees to negotiate
the language. Republican and Democratic Senate conferees consistently
supported the provision, which had been unanimously accepted during the
Senate Appropriations Committee markup of the bill.
US fraud statutes protect against waste of tax dollars at home, but none
expressly prohibit war profiteering and none expressly confer extraterritorial
jurisdiction overseas. (US Newswire)
DU protesters found not guilty of trespass at weapons
assembler
On Oct. 17, a Hennepin County jury declared that International Law can
trump the local private property/no trespass law. At the height of the
recent war against Iraq, on Apr. 2, 2003, 28 Minnesotans crossed
the line, entering the world headquarters property of Alliant TechSystems
Corporation (ATK) in Edina, MN with the express purpose of conducting
a citizens weapons inspection.
The letter they carried demanded that they have access to the books and
records of ATK to see if they had completed any studies on the medical
and environmental effects of the depleted uranium (DU) munitions they
produce.
The defendants contended that there is significant evidence that the DU
penetrator munitions produced by ATK are a prime suspect in escalating
rates of cancers and birth defects among residents of southern Iraq and
US troops who served in the first Gulf War.
Using provisions from the US Constitution and International Humanitarian
Law, the defendants successfully argued that the manufacture, sale,
stockpiling, as well as the use of weapons containing this radioactive
waste [DU] is illegal.
The US Constitution declares that International Treaties signed by the
government become the supreme law of the land. The Hague and
Geneva Conventions and its protocols and subsequent treaties are clear
that weapons which cannot discriminate between civilians and military
combatants are prohibited from, use, manufacture, and sale. (The
Pulse of the Twin Cities)
US court blocks payouts to ex-POWs
The Bush administration is quietly piling up victories in a legal battle
to block payments to 17 US combat veterans who were captured and tortured
in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and won a suit against Iraq for nearly $1 billion.
The former POWs whipped, beaten, burned, electrically shocked, and
starved by their Iraqi captors in 1991 say they are baffled by the
administrations refusal to let them collect any of Iraqs assets
now under US control, and by the Justice Departments efforts to overturn
a federal court decision upholding their claims to compensation.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy referred all questions about the dispute
to the Justice Department, where officials would not comment because the
matter is still in litigation.
In court filings, the government asserts sweeping presidential power to
block the claims because of the weighty foreign policy interests at
stake.
The former POWs launched their lawsuit in April 2002 under a 1996 law that
allows terrorist nations, so designated by the State Department, to be sued
for personal injuries to US nationals, including prisoners of war. They
argued that they were tortured in violation of the Geneva Conventions
ban on mistreatment of POWs.
Their position was strengthened last November when Congress passed and Bush
signed into law a terrorism insurance bill allowing Americans to collect
court-ordered compensatory damages from frozen assets of terrorist states.
(Newhouse News Service)
US dissident says Bush needs fear for reelection
US linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky said on Wednesday that
President Bush will have to manufacture another threat to
American security to win reelection in 2004 after US failure in occupying
Iraq.
Chomsky, attending a Latin American social sciences conference in Cuba,
said that since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration
had redefined US national security policy to include the use of force
abroad, with or without UN approval.
It is a frightened country and it is easy to conjure up an imminent
threat, Chomsky said at the launching of a Cuban edition of a book
of interviews published by the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, when asked
how Bush could get reelected.
After the disaster of the US invasion of Iraq, Bush could
turn his sights on Communist-run Cuba, which his administration officials
have charged with developing a biological weapons research program, the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of linguistics said.
Chomsky, a leftist icon who is better known today for his critique of
US foreign policy that for his revolutionary theory of syntax and grammar
in the 1960s, gave a lecture on the US politics of domination on Tuesday
night that was attended by Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Chomsky praised Cubas defiance of US hostility and trade sanctions
for four decades. But he also criticized the jailing of 75 Cuban dissidents
earlier this year by Castros government. (Reuters)
Bush faces majority who disapprove of war strategy
For the first time, a poll has found that a majority of Americans disapprove
of President George Bushs handling of Iraq, even before the devastating
helicopter attack of Nov. 2.
The poll was taken over last week, during which the mounting US casualties
were denting the publics confidence in the Bush administrations
grasp on events. The increasing cost of the occupation has further added
to disillusionment.
The Washington Post-ABC poll released yesterday shows the number who approve
of Bushs handling at 47percent, a fall of 28 points on the end of
April.
Those who disapproved had climbed to 51percent, the first time the figure
has broken 50 since the war began.
The poll showed the unity displayed after September 11 and again at the
beginning of the war almost completely dissipated, giving way to a public
increasingly split on partisan lines.
Some 54percent said the war was worth fighting and 44percent said it was
not. In March the figures were 70 percent and 27percent respectively.
One year away from the presidential election, the poll showed Bush only
marginally ahead of any Democratic candidate and with his approval ratings
on the economy and healthcare also falling. (Guardian
(UK))
Bid to trim Bechtels tax
Bechtel Corp., Halliburton Co., and other large engineering firms could
win a substantial tax break under legislation meant to defuse a $4 billion
trade fight with the European Union.
As part of a bill awaiting debate in the House of Representatives, their
taxes would be trimmed on income earned in the United States. Bechtels
industry, which also includes such heavyweights as Fluor Corp. and Parsons
Corp., would save an estimated $280 million to $350 million during the
next 10 years.
The bill, which faces stiff opposition from House Democrats, would wipe
out and replace an old export tax break that has run afoul of the World
Trade Organization. Europe has threatened to heap $4 billion in tariffs
on American exports if Washington doesnt eliminate the old break.
Bechtel and its competitors have benefited from the old system for years,
receiving a tax break on some income earned overseas.
Bechtel, however, stands to save more cash under the proposed domestic
cut, because the company makes most of its money in the United States.
A former IRS commissioner is lobbying lawmakers on Bechtels behalf.
(San Francisco Chronicle)
Soldier faces charge of cowardice
A soldier with Fort Carsons 10th Special Forces Group has been charged
with cowardice for allegedly refusing to do his duty in Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Georg Pogany, 32, a Special Forces interrogator, is charged
with showing cowardly conduct as a result of fear, in that he refused
to perform his duties, according to his charge sheet.
A cowardice charge is extremely rare, military law experts say. Army officials
couldnt say the last time it had been filed.
Pogany said he is wrongly charged.
The soldier said he experienced a panic attack after seeing
the mangled body of an Iraqi man and told his superior he was heading
for a nervous breakdown.
Pogany said he asked for help but was denied the care soldiers with combat
stress are supposed to receive.
Instead of help, Pogany said, one of his superiors told him to get
his head out of his ass and get with the program.
His commander ordered him back to Colorado Springs to face a court-martial
for misbehavior before the enemy.
If convicted in a court-martial, the soldier faces prison time and a dishonorable
discharge. He was charged Oct. 14. His first court appearance is Nov.
7 at Fort Carson. (Colorado Springs Gazette)
Growing use of private police network raises concerns
Since 2001, the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association has been quietly
linking the case files of law enforcement agencies around the state to
build a searchable system police can use to share information on people
that their officers have had contact with.
More than 175 agencies that collectively police two-thirds of the states
population are now participating in the Multiple Jurisdictional Network
Organization (MJNO), sharing nearly eight million records. Though still
owned by the chiefs, in March the state took over running it.
For police, the systems appeal is in the depth of information. Unlike
a database run by the states Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the
MJNO network doesnt just tell police if a person has been convicted
of a crime. It also tells whether theyve ever been arrested or if
they appear in police files as a victim, a suspect, a complainant or a
witness. It has juvenile files.
Agencies in neighboring states have begun to join the network and some
officers have access to it from their squad cars.
Now, spurred by citizens whove found themselves scrutinized because
of the system, the network is facing questions. At least one lawmaker
is planning hearings and an attorney is exploring a lawsuit with the hope
of shutting MJNO down. (AP)
|