tagged w/ President George W. Bush.
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The American view............?or just the inability to stand up as reporters and claim the same about Bush and his evil manipulations and pursuit of oil pipelines???????
Why wouldn't Russia want to compete against Untied States? after all Reagan showed them the democratic way to steal from the poor with their permission.
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Five months after sending Russian tanks into Georgia, Vladimir Putin has turned his sights to another pesky democratic neighbor, Ukraine. His weapon of choice this time is natural gas.
[Review & Outlook] AP
Try to ignore the noise about transit fees, back payments and market prices. Here's the salient fact about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies: Russia's strongman is wielding the energy club to undermine the pro-Western government in Kiev and scare the European Union into submission. The strategic stakes are as great as in Georgia last summer.
Mr. Putin, who has no formal oversight role at Gazprom, nonetheless ordered a 15% cut in gas deliveries to Ukraine on New Year's Day, amid a contractual dispute over prices. Russia used the same crude pressure tactic in January 2006, when Gazprom first cut supplies and destroyed its once stellar reputation for reliability.
But the impact down the line on Europe, which gets a fifth of all its gas through Ukraine, appears more pronounced than three years ago. Amid freezing winter temperatures, six European countries yesterday reported a halt in gas supplies while five others saw significant reductions. Tens of thousands of people were left without heat, including two mid-sized cities in Bulgaria. Here in the U.S., heating oil prices jumped 3.3% on expectations that Europeans would switch from natural gas to warm their homes.
cont...The American view............?or just the inability to stand up as reporters and claim... more
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WASHINGTON: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Sunday announced that he was withdrawing his nomination to be President-elect Barack Obama's
commerce secretary amid a grand jury investigation into how some of his political donors won a lucrative state contract.
Richardson's withdrawal was the first disruption of Obama's Cabinet process and the second ``pay-to-play'' investigation that has touched Obama's transition to the presidency. The president-elect has remained above the fray in both the case of arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and with the New Mexico case.
A federal grand jury is investigating how a California company that contributed to Richardson's political activities won a New Mexico state contract worth more than $1 million. Richardson said in a statement issued by the Obama transition office that the investigation could take weeks or months but expressed confidence it will show he and his administration acted properly.
cont....WASHINGTON: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Sunday announced that he was... more
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He said efforts were made to compromise and agree on a weaker press statement but there was no consensus. Palestinians carry the body of 4-year-old Lama Hamdan during her funeral in the town of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. (Photo: Mohammed Saber / EPA)
United Nations - The United States late Saturday blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and expressing concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas.
U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the United States saw no prospect of Hamas abiding by last week's council call for an immediate end to the violence. Therefore, he said, a new statement at this time "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council."
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, the current council president, announced that there was no agreement among members on a statement. But he said there were "strong convergences" among the 15 members to express serious concern about the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the need for "an immediate, permanent and fully respected cease-fire."
Arab nations demanded that the council adopt a statement calling for an immediate cease-fire following Israel's launch of a ground offensive in Gaza earlier Saturday, a view echoed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Libya's U.N. Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi, the only Arab member of the council, said the United States objected to "any outcome" during the closed council discussions on the proposed statement.He said efforts were made to compromise and agree on a weaker press statement but... more
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GAZA CITY, 31 December 2008 (IRIN) - In Gaza’s main hospital, the director’s office is under virtual siege, according to an IRIN journalist in Gaza. Relatives of the injured are desperate to get their kin transferred to Egypt for emergency treatment. There is a fear here that the already overstretched healthcare system will collapse if Israel mounts a ground offensive into the tiny coastal strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians.
As of the night of 30 December the death toll from the Israeli offensive had reached 380, with 1,800 wounded, according to the Gaza health ministry. The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said 30 children and nine women were among the dead and 250 children had been injured.
Fifteen medical patients passed through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt for emergency care on that day, said WHO.
Hospitals in the enclave have been overwhelmed by the trauma cases flowing into emergency rooms since the morning of 27 December.
An official from the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, Aed Yaghi, said at a press conference on 30 December that there were 2,053 hospital beds in Gaza, and warned it was not enough.
“One hundred and fifty patients were brought in at once,” said Khaled Abu-Najar, a staff nurse in Al-Shifa’s emergency room. “We lack beds, sterile gloves, sheets, scissors and gauze to treat patients.”
ShortagesGAZA CITY, 31 December 2008 (IRIN) - In Gaza’s main hospital, the... more
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wow .....10 yrs from now we will be giving them free oil.....
and (Un's= United nations pursuit of oil from poor countries.....no wonder they are pist!) sounds to me like someone needs to govern and do elections in the UN.
BAGHDAD, 4 January 2009 (IRIN) - An Iraqi government survey conducted late 2008 has found that 95 percent of Iraqi families would prefer to keep the state’s free food programme running rather than replace it with financial aid, a government spokesman said on 3 January.
“We interviewed 15,000 families all over Iraq and have already presented the outcomes to all concerned governmental parties for consideration when adopting new measures in this regard,” Abdul-Zahra al-Hindawi, spokesman for the Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation, which conducted the survey, told IRIN.
However, al-Hindawi said that his ministry, which oversees economic and human development projects, supports the government plan to withhold the programme from well-to-do people and provide food solely to poorer families.
“It will benefit the Iraqi economy when money goes only to buy food for those who need it,” al-Hindawi told IRIN.
Iraq’s food rationing system, known as the Public Distribution System (PDS), was set up in 1995 as part of the UN’s oil-for-food programme following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait 17 years ago. However, it has been crumbling since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 due to insecurity, poor management and corruption.wow .....10 yrs from now we will be giving them free oil.....
and (Un's=... more
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The U.S. government’s torture of detainees in the “war on terror” can be traced directly to a Feb. 7, 2002, memo signed by President George W. Bush.
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This was conclusion #1 of the recently released final report of the Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody.
Thanks primarily to this document, debate concerning one of the most shameful aspects of the “war on terror” has entered the mainstream debate after years on the edges of public discourse. [For more on the report, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Torture Trail Seen Starting with Bush.”]
Torture, however, is only one of the crimes associated with the “war on terror.” A few prominent examples of other crimes waiting to be “sourced” are:
Extraordinary rendition, illegal detention, loss of habeas corpus, abuse and murder of civilians in Iraq and elsewhere, and the creation of millions of impoverished refugees.
With these crimes, the need to find the origin is every bit as imperative as with torture. But we don’t need to ask the Senate Armed Services Committee to initiate 18-month investigations for each of these as well.
The question of responsibility for these and all other war crimes, including torture, was answered over 60 years ago at Nuremberg when high-ranking Nazis were brought to account for their atrocities in World War II.
On Sept. 30, 1946, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, president of the International Military Tribunal, read the judgment of the first Nuremberg trial, which included these memorable words:
“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
Torture, rendition, loss of liberties, unnecessary death and destruction are just some of the trees. Aggression is the forest.
And there can be no doubt that President George W. Bush and members of his inner circle have committed "the supreme international crime."
The invasion of Iraq is the clearest example of American aggression associated with the “war on terror.” The invasion – launched on March 19, 2003 – violated the Nuremberg Charter (Article VI(a)), as well as the United Nations Charter (Article 2, Sec. 4 and Article 39) and U.N. Security Council Resolution #1441.The U.S. government’s torture of detainees in the “war on terror”... more
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