TURN ON COMPUTER // TUNE IN TO FREED SPIRIT OF INTERNET
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“I don't know and neither do you." 

- Militant agnostic.

UP!

Dear Fraser,

Taking more time now to read your mailings ~ easier now they're coming right into my Outlook mailbox, and realising just how valuable they are.  Wikkid alchemical networking mate.  Major karmic public-service you're on.  Was overwhelmed by the volume before and it largely rendered them inaccessible to me.

Vanessa Vine, S. London.

up!

up!0012 was one of your best posts ever.  Thanx!

Virginia, Berlin.

UP!

 p.05  The 10 Most Important Under-Covered Stories Of 2004-05

p.12  Setting Up Abbas

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u cant understand the world without innerstanding yourself

up! 0013 // SEPT 5, 05

WE OUT THE TRUTH ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER!

la- la- la- lap-toppling da system!

u cant innerstand yourself without understanding the world

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“We welcome the Prime Minister’s comments at the Labour Party Conference that the Government is considering new nuclear build.“

WE OUT THE TRUTH ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER,

AND IT’S THE BIG ONE!

THE GLOBAL CORPORATE PIRATES WHO RUN THE COUNTRY HAVE BEEN HOLDING SECRET TALKS WITH THE UK GOVERNMENT ABOUT MASSIVE NEW BUILDING OF NUCLEAR STATIONS.  LOST IN THEIR DINOSAUR VIEW OF THE WORLD, THEY CLEARLY THINK THAT, AS ENERGY PRICES RISE AND RISE, POPULAR RESISTANCE CAN BE OVERCOME.

OBVIOUSLY THE ALTERNATIVE INVOLVES MASSIVELY INCREASING DEVELOPMENT OF ALTERNATIVGE ENERGY SOURCES, WORK ON ENERGY SAVING, AND PLAIN & SIMPLE LOWERING OF EXPECTATIONS AND DEMANDS.

WE THINK THE CORPORATE HEADS ARE DEAD WRONG, AND THAT, LIKE FRANKENSTEIN FOODS, THE PEOPLE OF THE UK WILL NEVER EVER ALLOW THIS INSANE, ANTI-PLANET DEVELOPMENT.

Secret Talks To Build More

UK Nuclear Power Stations

by Robert Lea, Evening Standard

THE BIG ONE THAT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING HAS BEGUN!

Secret meetings have taken place between the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Europe’s energy giants about building new UK nuclear power plants – indicating Tony Blair’s plans for new nuclear build are much further advanced than thought.

>> note the new tecno buzz words.

The 3 big European powerhouses which have already scooped up large parts of the UK energy market – Germany’s E.On and RWE which respectively trade as Powergen and Npower, and French-owned London Electricity Group EDF – held meetings with DTI officials during the summer concerning the construction and operation of new nuclear power stations in Britain.

>> 300 new casinos, more and more private medicine and schools, nuclear power stations across the land, and MASSIVE increases in surveillance and police powers  – getting Tony’s vision thing yet?!

The 3 companies are in pole position for this as British Energy , operator of the country’s nuclear power fleet, will be excluded.

An E.On UK spokesman told the Evening Standard:  “The chief executive (Paul Golby) has confirmed we have been talking to the Government about security of supply issues which included such things as the provision of nuclear power as a carbon-free technology.

>> catch the language, you’ll be hearing it a lot of it in the days to come!

The Association of Electricity Producers which speaks for E.On and EDF, confirmed it had a formal meeting with Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks in July, at which the lobby group says it told Wicks: “The Government should make it clear it would welcome the construction of new nuclear power stations and then reduce obstacles to their development.”

>> that probably includes me and YOU, geddit?!

“We welcome the Prime Minister’s comments at the Labour Party Conference last week”  said a spokesman for EDF.

Blair told the conference the Government is considering new nuclear build because as Britain becomes a net importer of gas to generate electricity, it may become “dependent on some of the unstable parts of the world.”

>> AND WHO IS MAKING THEM UNSTABLE??!!

shine your marching shoes, peeps!  this could be the Big One where we update the present corrupted model of democratic government!!!

UP!

“Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."  Candidate George Bush to Clinton about Kosovo.

UP!

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TEXT JOCKEY // TJ PHRASER (Fraser Clark) & THE MEDIA EVOLUTION

MIXING THE TRACTS LIVE ON THE KEYBOARD

@ A MEDIA-MEME RATE OF 160 IPP *

* Ideas Per Paragraph

TO SUBSCRIBE SOMEONE, WRITE I wanna get UP! TO fraser@parallel-youniversity.com

TO UNSUBSCRIBE, HIT REPLY WITH REMOVE IN THE SUBJECT BOX

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Nobel Peace Prize

**Remind your representatives that they supported the war against Iraq despite the fact that there was no concrete evidence that Saddam had a weapon’s program; but that Washington’s policy has been to repeatedly prevent any discussion of Israel's nuclear weapons at the UN.  Tell your representatives that these racist double standards do nothing to stem anti-American sentiments in the world and that they only affirm that Washington has one set of standards for Israelis and another for Muslims and Arabs. 

“Ask your elected officials to support legislation that would call for an investigation of Israel’s nuclear arsenal and for immediate sanctions against Israel for its repeated flouting of international law and U.N. resolutions.  Ask your representatives to invite Dr. Mordechai Vanunu to testify before the Senate.  He is a former Israeli nuclear technician, who was released from prison last year after completing an 18-year sentence in Israel's Ashkelon Prison, for blowing the whistle on Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program.  He was kidnapped by Israeli agents in 1986, and spent more than 11 years in solitary confinement

Mohammed Elbaradei, International Atomic Energy Agency Director, who has been jointly awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

up!

"Many rabbis and professionals have told me recently that they fear for their jobs should they even begin to articulate their doubts about Israeli policy--much less give explicit support to calls for an end to the occupation."  Rabbi Michael Lerner, April 28, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times.

UP!

EVERYTHING DYLAN EVER WROTE

Regular UP! reader and occasional contributor Pete Password has just created an ebook of all Dylan's lyrics, 442 pages in all!  Trace that line in your head that won't go away ... or just read for the poetry.  It's available for free download at

http://ccgi.passwordpublish.force9.co.uk/ebooks

UP!

here’s one of my very favourite dylan songs.  in the recent tv ting on his life, joan baez described a night they stayed at a posh hotel.  the management didn’t want to let skruffy bob in and joan had to pull her class.  she describes how he scribbled furiously all night and the song below is what he wrote.  inneresting,  he was driven by the rage he was feeling against the hotel management and, by extension, the whole sick world.

WHEN THE SHIP COMES IN  by  Bob Dylan

Oh the time will come up When the winds will stop And the breeze will cease to be breathin'.

Like the stillness in the wind 'Fore the hurricane begins, The hour when the ship comes in.

Oh the seas will split And the ship will hit And the sands on the shoreline will be shaking.

Then the tide will sound And the wind will pound And the morning will be breaking.

Oh the fishes will laugh As they swim out of the path And the seagulls they'll be smiling.

And the rocks on the sand Will proudly stand, The hour that the ship comes in.

And the words that are used For to get the ship confused Will not be understood as they're spoken.

For the chains of the sea Will have busted in the night And be buried at the bottom of the ocean.

A song will lift As the mainsail shifts And the boat drifts on to the shoreline.

And the sun will respect Every face on the deck, The hour that the ship comes in.

Then the sands will roll Out a carpet of gold For your weary toes to be a-touchin'.

And the ship's wise men Will remind you once again That the whole wide world is watchin'.

Oh the foes will rise With the sleep still in their eyes And they'll jerk from their beds and think they're dreamin'.

But they'll pinch themselves and squeal And know that it's for real, The hour when the ship comes in.

Then they'll raise their hands, Sayin' we'll meet all your demands, There’ll be a shout from the bow your days are numbered.

And like Pharaoh's tribe, They'll be drownded in the tide, And like Goliath, they'll be conquered.

UP!

Al Gore | The Threat to American Democracy

“It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse.  I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.”

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100605A.shtml

UP!

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 the UP! is a global edutainment round-up, broadcast weekly to =[13,645]=

Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age// Peace folks

recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity// Megatripolis Dance Dept as

 "showing signs of life".

Since recipients forward it widely to their own lists & sites,

we conservatively estimate 50,000+ direct recipients.

A further 40,000 read it on the YOUniversity's site.

And, because of its 'mix' of 'specialist' & 'general' content,

it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide,

making an estimated total weekly readership of =[275,000]=

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The 10 Most Important

Under-Covered Stories Of 2004-05

ANNUAL  RELEASE BY PROJECT CENSORED AT SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY

For full postings see: http://www.projectcensored.org/

1  BUSH ADMINISTRATION MOVES TO ELIMINATE OPEN GOVERNMENT

They’ve been working to make sure the public - and even Congress - can't find out what the government itself is doing.

The feds have consistently "narrowed the scope and application" of the Freedom of Information Act, the Presidential Records Act, and other key public information laws.  So said an 81-page report released in the Fall of 2004 by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).  Simultaneously the government expanded laws blocking access to certain records - even creating new categories of "protected" information and exempting entire departments from public scrutiny.

Over the last two decades, beginning with Reagan, The Freedom of Information Act has become increasingly diluted and circumvented by each succeeding administration.  Under the Bush Administration, agencies make extensive and arbitrary use of these exemptions such as those for classified information, privileged attorney-client documents and certain information compiled for law enforcement purposes.

They’ve even refused to release records to Congressional subcommittees or the Government Accountability Office.  A few of the potentially incriminating documents being held secret from Congress include records of contacts between large energy companies and Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force; White House memos pertaining to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction; and reports describing torture at Abu Ghraib.

In March 2002, they mandated that agencies safeguard any records having to do with "weapons of mass destruction."  This included "information that could be misused to harm the security of our nation and the safety of our people".  Agencies were basically left free to withhold virtually any information under the vague charge of "national security."

Congressman Waxman described the government secrecy moves as "an unprecedented assault on the laws that make our government open and accountable,"

<http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0914-05.htm>

<http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/story.asp?ID=692&Issue=Open+Government>

2.  MEDIA COVERAGE FAILS ON IRAQ

The Civilian Death Toll

Les Roberts of John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health conducted a rigorous inquiry into pre- and post-invasion mortality in Iraq, sneaking into Iraq by lying flat on the bed of an SUV and training observers on the scene.  The results were published in the Lancet, a prestigious peer-reviewed British medical journal, on Oct. 29, 2004.  Roberts and his team concluded that

100,000 civilian deaths are associated with the Iraq invasion/ occupation.  It may be much higher. 

 95,000 of those deaths were caused by helicopter gunships, rockets, or other forms of aerial weaponry.

 50,000+ of the fatalities were women or children.

Fallujah

The above study was done before the second invasion of Fallujah in the Fall of 2004.  More than 83% of Fallujah's 300,000 residents fled the city but, with nowhere to flee, ended up as refugees.  Many families were forced to survive in fields, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings without access to shelter, water, electricity, food or medical care.

The 50,000 citizens who remained (by choice or circumstance) were trapped by Coalition forces and cut off from food, water and medical supplies.  Men 15 - 45 were refused safe passage, and all who remained were treated as enemy combatants. 

Coalition forces cut off the city’s water and electricity, seized the main hospital, shot at anyone who ventured into the open, and executed white flag waving families trying to swim the Euphrates or flee the city.  US forces shot at ambulances, raided homes, killed people who didn't understand English, rolled over injured people with tanks, and allowed corpses to rot in the streets and be eaten by dogs.

>> visions of new orleans – increasingly instant karma.

Medical staff reported seeing dead and alive people with melted faces and limbs - injuries consistent with phosphorous bombs. 

At least 6,000 Fallujah citizens were killed, and one-third of the city destroyed as of December 2004. 

The International Committee for the Red Cross reported on December 23, 2004 that three of the city's water purification plants had been destroyed and the fourth badly damaged.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for an investigation into whether Coalition Forces had engaged in "the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons, and the use of human shields… grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions... considered war crimes".

Peacework, December 2004-January 2005, The Invasion of Fallujah: A Study in the Subversion of Truth" By Mary Trotochaud and Rick McDowell

World Socialist Web Site, November 17, 2004, US Media Applauds Destruction of Fallujah, by David Walsh, The NewStandard, December 3, 2004, Fallujah Refugees Tell of Life and Death in the Kill Zone, by  Dahr Jamail, The Lancet, October 29, 2004, Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, By Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi and Gilbert Burnham, The Lancet, October 29, 2004, The War in Iraq: Civilian Casualties, Political Responsibilities, by Richard Horton, The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 4, 2005, Lost Count, by Lila Guterman, Asheville Global Report, April 15, 2004, CNN to Al Jazeera: Why Report Civilian Deaths?"

http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage

www.dahrjamailiraq.com

www.worldtribunal.org

3. LIKELY ELECTION FRAUD IN 2004

In These Times, 02/15/05, A Corrupted Election, by Steve Freeman and Josh Mitteldorf

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 26, 2005, Jim Crow Returns To The Voting Booth,

by GregPalast, Rev. Jesse Jackson

www.freepress.org, Nov. 23, 2004, How a Republican Election Supervisor Manipulated the 2004 Central Ohio Vote, by Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman

Bush prevailed by 3 million votes despite exit polls that clearly projected a Kerry margin of 5 million.

The 8-million discrepancy was well beyond the poll's recognised, less-than-1-percent margin of error.  And when Freeman and Mitteldorf analysed the data collected by the two companies that conducted the polls, they found concrete evidence of potential fraud in the official count.

"Exit polls are highly accurate. They remove most sources of potential error by asking actual voters immediately afterward voting." - Steve Freeman, professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Organizational Dynamics, and Temple University statistician Josh Mitteldorf.

"Only in precincts that used old-fashioned, hand-counted paper ballots did the official count and the exit polls fall within the normal sampling margin of error.”  And "The discrepancy between the exit polls and the official count was considerably greater in the critical swing states.

In Bush strongholds, Kerry received only about 66% of the votes predicted by exit polls.  In Kerry strongholds, exit polls matched the official count almost exactly.

4. SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY QUIETLY MOVES IN

Information Management Journal, Mar/Apr 2004 , PATRIOT Act's Reach Expanded Despite Part Being Struck Down" b y Nikki Swartz

LiP Magazine, Winter 2004, Grave New World", Anna Samson Miranda(former Prject Censored Student)

Capitol Hill Blue, June 7, 2004, Where Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7, By Teresa Hampton and Doug Thompson

On the day American troops captured Saddam Hussein Bush signed the Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) - a controversial expansion of the PATRIOT Act whose earlier draft proposal had been shelved due to public outcry after being leaked.

Specifically, the IAA allows the government to obtain an individual's financial records without a court order.  More, the law forbids institutions from informing anyone that the government has requested those records.

"The law also broadens the definition of 'financial institution' to include insurance companies, travel and real-estate agencies, stockbrokers, the U.S. Postal Service, jewelry stores, casinos, airlines, car dealerships, and any other business 'whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters’. The definition is now so broad that it could plausibly be used to access school transcripts or medical records.  In one fell swoop, this act has decimated our rights to privacy, due process, and freedom of speech," wrote Anna Samson Miranda in an article for LiP magazine titled "Grave New World”.

In November 2002, the New York Times reported that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was developing a tracking system called "Total Information Awareness” to detect terrorists through analysing troves of information.  But Congress unanimously passed a Defense Appropriations bill denying any funding to Total Information Awareness research.  In response, the Pentagon proposed The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, a State run information generating tool, thereby circumventing congress' concern.  The MATRIX program was officially shut down on April 15, 2005.  But the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security are now utilising a system called FACTS (Factual Analysis Criminal Threat Solution).

>> oh, what’s in a name?!

"Between July 2003 and April 2005, 1,866,202 queries were made to the FACTS application.”  Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

On May 10, 2005, President Bush secretly signed into law the REAL ID Act, requiring states to issue federally approved electronic ID cards within 3 years.  Attached as an amendment to another emergency spending bill, the REAL ID Act passed without the scrutiny and debate of Congress.

Inability to conform will leave US citizens and residents paralysed as ID cards that do not meet the federally mandated standards will not be accepted for travel, opening a bank account, or participating in government benefits.

# 5. U.S. USES TSUNAMI TO MILITARY ADVANTAGE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

The American people reacted to the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean in December 2004 with an outpouring of compassion and private donations.  Across the nation, neighbors got together to collect food, clothing, medicines, and financial contributions.  Schoolchildren completed class projects to help the cause.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government didn't reflect the same level of altruism.  President Bush initially offered an embarrassingly low $15 million in aid.  More importantly the U.S. government used the catastrophe to exploit its own strategic military advantage.  While supplying aid (which, when compared proportionately to that of other, less wealthy countries, was an insulting pittance), we simultaneously bolstered military alliances with regional powers in, and began expanding our bases throughout, the Indian Ocean region.

Establishing a stronger military presence in the region has long been a US desire to keep closer tabs on China.  China, thanks to its burgeoning economic and military muscle, has emerged as one of America’s greatest potential rivals.

During subsequent tsunami relief operations, the U.S. reactivated its military co-operation agreements with Thailand and the Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines.  U.S. Navy vessels utilised facilities in Singapore, keeping with previous treaties.  U.S. marines and the navy arrived in Sri Lanka despite the tsunami-hit island's initial reluctance to permit their entry.  The U.S. also stepped up their survey of the Malacca Straits, through which 90% of Japan's oil supplies pass.

The U.S. currently operates a base out of Diego Garcia - a former British mandate in the Chagos Archipelago (about halfway between Africa and Indonesia), but the lease runs out in 2016.  The isle is also "remote and Washington is desperate for an alternative," wrote veteran Indian journalist Rahul Bedi.

In February 2005, the State Department mended broken ties with the Indonesian military - although human rights observers charged the military with withholding "food and other relief from civilians suspected of supporting the secessionist insurgency, the Free Aceh Movement,"  Jim Lobe reported for the Inter Press Service.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that U.S. relief to the tsunami-affected region would assist the war against terror and introduce "American values to the region."  The Bush Administration is also reviving its hopes of normalising military ties with Indonesia, writes Jim Lobe.  The world's most populous Muslim nation, its strategically located archipelago, critical sea lanes, and historic distrust of China have made it an ideal partner for containing Beijing.

During a January 2005 visit to Jakarta, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told reporters, "I think if we're interested in military reform here, and certainly this Indonesian government is and our government is, I think we need to possibly reconsider a bit where we are at this point in history moving forward."

According to an article in the Asheville Global Report, the following month the U.S. State Department made a decision to renew the International Education and Military Training (IMET) program for Indonesia.

"Clearly these new bases will strengthen Washington's military logistical support in the region," says Professor Anuradha Chenoy at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Jane's Foreign Report (Jane's Defence), February 15, 2005, U.S. Turns Tsunami into Military Strategy

The Irish Times, February 8, 2005 , U.S. has used tsunami to boost aims in stricken area,

by Rahul Bedi

Inter Press Service, January, 18 2005, Bush Uses Tsunami Aid to Regain Foothold in Indonesia, by Jim Lobe

# 6. THE REAL OIL FOR FOOD SCAM

Last year, right-wingers in Congress began kicking up a fuss about how the United Nations had allegedly allowed Saddam Hussein to rake in $10 billion in illegal cash through the Oil for Food program.  Headlines screamed scandal.  New York Times' columnist William Safire referred to the alleged U.N. con game as "the richest rip-off in world history."

There is plenty of evidence of corruption in the "oil-for-food" program, but the trail of evidence leads not to the UN but to the U.S.  The 15 members of the Security Council - of which the United States was by far the most influential - determined how income from oil proceeds would be handled, and how the funds could be used.

The initial anti-UN accusations were based on a General Accounting Office report released in April 2004 and were later bolstered by a more detailed report commissioned by the CIA.

According to the GAO, Hussein smuggled $6 billion worth of oil out of Iraq - most of it through the Persian Gulf.  Yet the U.N. fleet charged with intercepting any such smugglers was under direct command of American officers, and consisted overwhelmingly of U.S. Navy ships.  In 2001, for example, 90 of its vessels belonged to the United States, while Britain contributed only 4.

Most of the oil that left Iraq by land did so through Jordan and Turkey - with the approval of the U.S.  The first Bush administration informally exempted Jordan from the ban on purchasing Iraqi oil - an arrangement that provided Hussein with $4.4 billion over 10 years, according to the CIA's own findings.  The U.S. later allowed Iraq to leak another $710 million worth of oil through Turkey - all while U.S. planes enforcing no-fly zones flew overhead.

U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, in Iraq during the first 6 years of economic sanctions against the country, unearthed yet another scam: The United States allegedly allowed an oil company run by Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov's sister to purchase cheap oil from Iraq and resell it to U.S. companies at market value.

"It has been estimated that 80% of the oil illegally smuggled out of Iraq under 'oil for food' ended up in the United States," Ritter wrote in the U.K. Independent.

Little of the blame can credibly be laid at the feet of 'the UN bureaucracy.'  Far more of the fault lies with policies and decisions of the Security Council in which the United States played a central role.

Harper's Magazine, December 2004, The UN is Us: Exposing Saddam Hussein's silent partner, by Joy Gordon http://www.harpers.org/TheUNisUS.html

Independent/UK, December 12, 2004, The oil for Food 'Scandal' is a Cynical Smokescreen, by Scott Ritter and http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1212-23.htm

# 7 JOURNALISTS FACE UNPRECEDENTED DANGERS TO LIFE AND LIVELIHOOD

The Iraq war has been the deadliest combat zone for reporters since the International Federation of Journalists began keeping tabs in 1984.  A total of 49 media workers have lost their lives in Iraq.

In short, non-embedded journalists have now become familiar victims of U.S. military actions abroad.  "As far as anyone has yet proved, no commanding officer ever ordered a subordinate to fire on journalists as such," writes Steve Weissman.  But what can be shown is a pattern of tacit complicity, side by side with a heavy-handed campaign to curb journalists' right to roam freely.

According to independent journalist Dahr Jamail, journalists are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq.  When the only safety for a reporter is being embedded with the U.S. military, the reported stories tend to have a positive spin.  Non-embedded reporters suffer the great risk of being identified as enemy targets by the military.

The Pentagon has refused to implement basic safeguards to protect journalists who aren't embedded with coalition forces, despite repeated requests by Reuters and media advocacy organisations.

The most blatant attack on journalists occurred the morning of April 8, 2004, when the Third Infantry fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad killing cameramen Jose Couso and Taras Protsyuk and injuring three others. The hotel served as headquarters for some 100 reporters and other media workers.  The Pentagon officials knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of journalists and had assured the Associated Press that the U.S. would not target the building.  The U.S. military exonerated the army of any wrongdoing in its attack on the Palestine Hotel.  To date, U.S. authorities have not disciplined a single officer or soldier involved in the killing of a journalist.

Unsatisfied with the U.S. military's investigation, Reporters Without Borders, an international organisation that works to improve the legal and physical safety of journalists worldwide, conducted their own investigation.  They gathered evidence from journalists in the Palestine Hotel at the time of the attacks.  Their report stated that the U.S. officials first lied about what had happened during the attack and then, in an official statement four months later, exonerated the U.S. Army from any mistake of error in judgment.  Olga Rodriguez, a journalist present at the Palestine Hotel during the attack, stated on KPFA's Democracy Now! that the soldiers and tanks were present at the hotel 36 hours before the firing and that reporters had even communicated with the soldiers.

April 8, 2004: The same day of the attack on the Palestine Hotel, the U.S. bombed the Baghdad offices of Abu Dhabi TV and Al-Jazeera killing Al-Jazeera correspondent Tariq Ayyoub.  August 17, 2004: Mazen Dana was killed while filming a prison, guarded by the U.S. military in a Baghdad suburb.

As a matter of military doctrine, the U.S. military dominates, at all costs, every element of battle, including our perception of what they do.  The need for control leads the Pentagon to urge journalists to embed themselves within the military, where they can go where they are told and film and tell stories only from a pro-American point of view.  The Pentagon offers embedded journalists a great deal of protection.  As the Pentagon sees it, non-embedded eyes and ears do not have any military significance, and unless Congress and the American people stop them, the military will continue to target independent journalists.

www.truthout.org, Feb. 28, 2005, Dead Messengers: How the U.S. Military Threatens Journalists, Steve Weissman, http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022405A.shtml

InterPress Service, November 18, 2004, Media Repression in 'Liberated' Land, by Dahr Jamail, http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26333

# 8 IRAQI FARMERS THREATENED BY BREMMER'S MANDATES

Historians believe it was in the "fertile crescent" of Mesopotamia, where Iraq now lies, that humans first learned to farm.  "It is here, in around 8500 or 8000 B.C., that mankind first domesticated wheat, here that agriculture was born," wrote Jeremy Smith in the Ecologist.  This entire time, "Iraqi farmers have been naturally selecting wheat varieties that work best with their climate ... and cross-pollinated them with others with different strengths.

"The U.S., however, has decided that, despite 10,000 years practice, Iraqis don't know what wheat works best in their own conditions," write Jeremy Smith.  Smith was referring to Order 81, one of 100 directives penned by L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and left as a legacy by the American government when it transferred operations to interim Iraqi authorities.  The regulation sets criteria for the patenting of seeds that can only be met by multinational companies like Monsanto or Syngenta, and it grants the patent holder exclusive rights over every aspect of all plant products yielded by those seeds.  Because of naturally occurring cross-pollination, the new scheme effectively launches a process whereby Iraqi farmers will soon have to purchase their seeds rather than using seeds saved from their own crops or bought at the local market.

Native varieties will be replaced by foreign - and genetically engineered - seeds, and Iraqi agriculture will become more vulnerable to disease as biological diversity is lost.

Texas A&M University, which brags that its agriculture program is a "world leader" in the use of biotechnology, has already embarked on a $107 million project to "re-educate" Iraqi farmers to grow industrial-sized harvests, for export, using American seeds.  As part of the project Iraqi farmers are given equipment and genetically modified seeds.  And anyone who's ever paid attention to how this has worked elsewhere in the global South knows what comes next: Farmers will lose their lands, and the country will lose its ability to feed itself, engendering poverty and dependency.

Order 81 was one of several imposed by Bremer that fit nicely into the outlines of a U.S. "Economy Plan," a 101-page blueprint for the economic makeover of Iraq, formulated with ample help from corporate lobbyists.

Greg Palast reported that someone inside the State Department leaked the plan to him a month prior to the invasion.  One of the goals of the plan is to impose intellectual property laws in Iraq favorable to multinational corporations.

Smith put it simply: "The people whose forefathers first mastered the domestication of wheat will now have to pay for the privilege of growing it for someone else.  And with that the world's oldest farming heritage will become just another subsidiary link in the vast American supply chain."

Grain, October 2004, Iraq's new Patent Law: a declaration of war against farmers

TomPaine.com, October 26, 2004, Adventure Capitalism, by Greg Palast

The Ecologist, February 4, 2005, U.S. Seeking to Totally Re-engineer Iraqi traditional farming system into a U.S. style corporate agribusiness, by Jeremy Smith

# 9 IRAN'S NEW OIL TRADE SYSTEM CHALLENGES U.S. CURRENCY

GlobalResearch.ca, October 27, Iran Next U.S. Target, by William Clark

The Bush administration has been paying a lot more attention to Iran recently.  Part of that interest is clearly Iran's nuclear program - but there may be more to the story.  One bit of news that hasn't received the public vetting it merits is Iran's declared intent to open an international oil exchange market, or "bourse."

The vast majority of the world's oil is traded on the New York NYMEX (Mercantile Exchange) and the London IPE (International Petroleum Exchange), and, as mentioned by Clark, both exchanges are owned by U.S. corporations.  Both of these oil exchanges transact oil trades in U.S. currency.  Iran's plan to open an international oil exchange for trading oil in the euro is a huge threat to U.S. dollar supremacy in oil.  A shift away from U.S. dollars to euros in the oil market would cause the value of the dollar to plummet.

In mid-2003 Iran broke from tradition and began accepting eurodollars as payment for it oil exports from its E.U. and Asian customers.  Saddam Hussein attempted a similar bold step back in 2000 and was met with a devastating reaction from the US.  One of the first orders issued by Bremmer after the US occupation of Iraq was to sell oil in dollars only. (Censored 2004 #19).

Russia, Venezuela, and some members of OPEC have expressed interest in moving towards a petroeuro system.  And it isn't entirely implausible that China, which is "the world's second largest holder of U.S. currency reserves," might eventually follow suit.

China, as a major exporter of goods to the United States, has a vested interest in helping shore up the American economy and has even linked its own currency, the yuan, to the dollar, but it has also become increasingly dependent on Iranian oil and gas.  Worrisome to the US is the potentiality of China to abandon its ongoing large purchases of U.S. Treasuries/debt-should they become displeased with U.S. policies towards Iran.

Barring a US attack, it appears likely that Iran's euro-dominated oil bourse will open in 2006.  The irony is that U.S. threats to invade Iran put pressure on the Chinese to abandon their support of the dollar.  Clark warns that "a unilateral U.S. military strike on Iran would further isolate the U.S. government, and it is conceivable that such an overt action could provoke other industrialised nations to abandon the dollar en masse."

Readers interesting in learning more about the dollar/euro oil currency conflict can read William Clark's new book, Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar. Available from New Society Publishers

# 10 MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL THREATENS ECOSYSTEM AND ECONOMY

Earthfirst! Nov-Dec 2004, See you in the Mountains: Katuah Earth First! Confronts Mountaintop Removal, by John Conner

On Aug. 15 2004, environmental activists created a human blockade by locking themselves to drilling equipment, obstructing the National Coal Corp.'s access to a strip mine in the Appalachian mountains 40 miles north of Knoxville.  It was just the latest in a protracted campaign that environmentalists say has national implications, but that's been ignored by the media outside the immediate area.

Mountaintop removal (MTR) is a new form of coal mining in which companies dynamite the tops of mountains to collect the coal underneath.  Multiple peaks are blown off and dumped onto highland watersheds, destroying entire mountain ranges.  More than 1,000 miles of streams have been destroyed by this practice in West Virginia alone.  Mountain top removal endangers and destroys entire communities with massive sediment dams and non-stop explosions.

According to Fred Mooney, an active member of the Mountain Faction of Katuah Earth First!, "MTR is an ecocidal mining practice in which greedy coal companies use millions of pounds of dynamite a day (three million pounds a day in the southwest Virginia alone) to blow up entire mountain ranges in order to extract a small amount of coal".  He goes on to say that "Then as if that wasn't bad enough, they dump the waste into valleys and riverbeds.  The combination of these elements effectively kills everything in the ecosystems."

The coal industry has coined many less menacing names for mountaintop removal, such as cross range mining, surface mining and others.  But regardless of the euphemism, MTR remains among the most pernicious forms of mining ever conceived.  Blasting mountain tops with dynamite is cheaper than hiring miners who belong to a union.  More than 40,000 jobs have been lost to MTR in West Virginia alone.

Most states are responsible for permitting and regulating mining operations under the Surface Mining Control Act.  Now MTR is trying to break into Tennessee, specifically Zeb Mountain in the northeast.  Because Tennessee did such a poor job in the 70's, the state renounced control, and all mining is now regulated under the federal Office of Surface Mining.

93 new coal plants are being planned for construction throughout the U.S.  Demand for coal will increase as these new facilities are completed.  Oil is starting to run out and there are no concrete plans for a transition to renewable resources such as wind and solar energy.  Coal companies therefore will be well-positioned to capitalize on their growing market by using Mountain top removal as a cheap way to pull coal from the ground.

For Stories 11-25 see: http://www.projectcensored.org/

Peter Phillips Ph.D., Sociology Department/Project Censored, Sonoma State University, 1801 East Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park, CA 94928

707-664-2588

http://www.projectcensored.org/

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Afghanistan:

A Disaster After 4 Years of US Occupation

On October 7th 2001, the US forces and its cowardly allies bombed the poorest nation on earth, Afghanistan, possesse3d of no comparable military defence.  The magnitude of this tragedy is simply beyond words. 

A nation was completely devastated, based on the decision of a psychopath who thought God told him to do it.  What has been accomplished as a result of this heinous crime is nothing short of mass genocide.

In addition to the destruction of what remained standing in the country, Afghanistan is infested with massive amounts of uranium munitions, which are truly genocidal weapons which will deprive future generations of any kind of normalcy.

In fact, since the US and her cowardly allies unleashed this disaster on the poor people of Afghanistan, the number of deformed babies has risen significantly, and the rate of various cancers has accelerated in different parts of the country - especially in the South.

There has not been ANY reconstruction.  In fact, the country lacks paved roads, schools, and hospitals.  The infant mortality and the maternal death rate have risen dramatically.

There has been no security or true law and order.  Instead, organised crime has flourished to an extent unheard of in Afghanistan.  Incidentally, government officials sponsor and direct criminal organisations geared toward kidnapping anyone worth dollars.

The recent election to the parliament was full of fraud.  Warlords forcefully included inflated numbers of nonexistent voters for their bid to secure seats.  Consequently, murderers, thieves and known criminals who are allies of the United States secured their way into the concocted 'national assembly'.

As to the behaviour of the US soldiers, no decency is expected of them.  They are essentially a bunch of murderers, rapists and sodomites hiding behind military uniforms.  The following example should be more than enough to sicken and disgust any decent human being.

In the Bagrami area of Kabul, US forces assaulted a small enclave of nomads.  They flew over this enclave and saw nomad women near their tents.  They landed their helicopter and kidnapped these women at gunpoint.  Subsequently, they flew away with these women to some location, and gang-raped them.

The soldiers finally flew them back to their community.  But this time the helicopter did not land.  Too cowardly to risk being shot in revenge, they threw the women from the helicopter to their deaths.

This is not unique for the US forces.  They committed similar crimes in Vietnam.

So there you have it, people.  Happy?

Your boys have really made a difference.  Bravo.

Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD, Director Afghan DU & Recovery Fund.
www.afghandufund.org

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Palestine

Setting Up Abbas

by Jeff Halper,

Coordinator Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions  

From Sharon's point of view it's a done deal.  Israel has won its century-old conflict with the Palestinians.  Surveying the landscape - physical and political alike - the Israeli Prime Minister has finally fulfilled the task with which he was charged 38 years ago by Menachem Begin: ensure permanent Israel control over the entire Land of Israel while foreclosing the emergence of a viable Palestinian state.

With unlimited resources at his disposal, Sharon set out to establish irreversible “facts on the ground” that would pre-empt any process of negotiations.  Supported by both Likud and Labor governments, he oversaw the establishment of some 200 settlements (almost 400 if you include the “outposts”) on land expropriated from Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.  Today almost a half million Israelis live across the 1967 border.  With financial backing of the Clinton Administration, a system of 29 highways was constructed in the Occupied Territories to incorporate the settlements into Israel proper. 

In the meantime 96% of the Palestinians were locked into what Sharon calls ”cantons,” dozens of tiny enclaves, deprived of the right to move freely and now being literally imprisoned behind concrete walls twice as high as the Berlin Wall and electrified fence.  Although comprising half the population of the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, the Palestinians - including those with Israeli citizenship - are confined to just 15% of the country.

To secure permanent Israeli control, however, the “facts on the ground” had to be legitimised as permanent political facts.  International law defines occupation as a temporary situation resolvable only through negotiations.  It prohibits an Occupying Power from taking any steps that make its control permanent, specifically transferring one's population into an occupied territory and building settlements.  Indeed, international law holds an Occupying Power such as Israel responsible for the well-being of the civilian population under its control.  For help in by-passing international law and transforming Israel's Occupation into a permanent reality, Sharon turned to Israel's one and only patron in such matters, the US, which promptly obliged.  In April, 2004, the Bush Administration formally recognised Israel's settlement blocs - euphemistically called “major population centres” - thus unilaterally removing from the Palestinians 20-30% of the already truncated area in which they wished to establish a small state of their own.

Still, Israel needs a Palestinian state.  Although the annexation of the settlement blocs gives Israel complete control over the entire country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, it needs to “get rid of” the almost 4 million Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories to which it can neither give citizenship nor keep in a state of permanent bondage.  What Sharon seeks, and what Bush has agreed to, is a truncated Palestinian mini-state, a Bantustan, a prison-state on 10-15% of the country that relieves Israel of the Palestinian population while leaving it firmly in control of the country and its resources.  Whether or not we like the term, this amounts to full-blown apartheid, the permanent and institutionalised domination of one people over another.

Sharon lacks just one last piece to make Israeli apartheid official: either the signature of a Palestinian quisling-leader agreeing to a mini-state, or an excuse to unilaterally impose it.  Arafat refused to play that role.

>> and may have been bumped off.

Now it is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' turn.  When, just this week, Sharon's advisor on strategy, Eyal Arad, raised the possibility of turning unilateral disengagement into a strategy that would allow Israel to draw its own borders, the message to Abbas was clear: Cooperate or lose any input whatsoever into the political resolution.

Sharon, in short, is priming Abbas for a set up, another “generous offer.”  It worked well for Barak, why not try it again, this time for the whole pot?  What would Abbas say if Sharon offered Gaza, 70-80% of the West Bank and a symbolic presence in East Jerusalem?  True, it is not a just or viable solution.  The Palestinians would be confined to five or six cantons on 15% of the entire country or less, with no control of their borders, their water, even their airspace.  Jerusalem, now encased in a massive Israeli “Greater Jerusalem,” would be denied them, thereby removing the political, cultural, religious and economic heart of any Palestinian state.  Israel would retain its settlement blocs and 80% of its settlers. 

But Sharon's “generous offer” would look good on the map and, he believes, viability is simply too complicated a concept for most people, including decision-makers, to grasp.  But for Abbas it sets up a no-win situation.  Say “yes” and you will be the quisling leader Israel has been looking for all these years, the one who agreed to a non-viable mini-state, to apartheid.  Say “no” and Sharon will pounce: “See?! The Palestinians have refused yet another Generous Offer!  They obviously do not want peace!”  And Israel, off the hook, will be free to expand its control of the Occupied Territories for years to come, protected from criticism by American-backed annexation of the settlement blocs.

 Israeli unilateralism means only one thing: it has nothing to offer the Palestinians, nothing worth negotiating over.  The Road Map asserts that only a true end of the Occupation and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state will finally see the end of this conflict with its global implications.  A genuine two-state solution may already be dead, the victim of Israeli expansionism.  A two-state “solution” based on apartheid cannot be an alternative accepted by any of us.  Yet apartheid is upon us once again. 

Sharon must act fast to complete his life's work before his term of office expires within the next year.  This is the crunch.  We cannot afford to have our attention deflected by any other issue, important as it may be.  It is either a just and viable solution now or apartheid now. 

We may well be facing the prospect of another full-fledged anti-apartheid struggle just a decade and a half after the fall of apartheid in South Africa.  The next three to six months will tell.

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