From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 00:08:18 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 00:08:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] OMG!! Bird Lovers Our Next Eco-Terrorist? Message-ID: <20041213080818.20602.qmail@web13608.mail.yahoo.com> Bird lovers in New York promising guerrilla tactics pioneered by ALF. IBB http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1263293.htm Fans vow to protest against NY hawk's eviction Incensed bird lovers have intensified their protests outside a ritzy Upper East Side New York apartment building in the United States that removed the nest of famed red-tailed hawk Pale Male even as meetings were set to discuss bringing back the hawk's home. Holdings signs saying "Protect Family Values, Bring Back the Nest" and "Honk for the Hawks," the crowd chanted "Bring back the nest" and elicited raucous honks from buses, taxis and cars. It was the fourth day of protests outside the building, which on Tuesday abruptly took down the hawk's nest and metal spikes that supported it. John Flicker, president of the National Audubon Society, said the conservationist group would meet with the building's management to ask the metal spikes be returned. So far, Pale Male's attempts at rebuilding have been futile. "The whole city has fallen in love with these birds," Mr Flicker said. "We want the spikes back in place." Pale Male became a local attraction in 1993 when he built his nest on a window cornice 12 stories above Central Park. Metal spikes, which were supposed to deter pigeons, provided support for the nest and protection from the wind. The hawk inspired a book, a documentary, and fans that watched Pale Male and his mates raise more than 20 chicks. The exclusive building said the nest was removed because it posed a safety and health issue. Actress Mary Tyler Moore, who lives in the same building as the hawk, said earlier this week: "I am just amazed at the insensitivity of people who have torn away a nest that had been used for 10 years by an extraordinary red-tail hawk." Moore attributed the decision to complaints over "the occasional bird droppings" that the hawks produced. Hawk supporters promised "guerrilla" tactics to bring back the nest, and websites posted the names of building residents. Protester Melodie Bryant said the building made a mistake, angering bird watchers who are well-known for waiting days or years to catch a glimpse of a rare bird. "Don't try and wear out a bird watcher with patience," she said. "We'll wait for hours." -Reuters ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. Learn more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 16:22:17 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:22:17 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Your Papers Please Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 16:43:53 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:43:53 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Why the US Ruling Class Hates the Draft Message-ID: REALITY CHECK: WHY THE U.S. RULING CLASS HATES THE DRAFT From: SOLDIERS IN REVOLT: DAVID CORTRIGHT, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1975 In addition to encountering defiance of its orders, the draft system became the target of an increasing number of violent attacks?what amounted to a small-scale, guerrilla war. Draft Director Curtis Tarr?s first semiannual report opened with a description of ?systematic? attacks in June of 1970 that nearly destroyed all the records necessary to maintain the draft in the states of Delaware and Rhode Island. It?s no wonder that the Nixon administration moved promptly to eliminate the draft as a principla means of fulfilling its promise to pacify America. The draft has never been popular in America, but Vietnam sparked the largest eruption of public outrage since the Civil War, nearly crippling the Selective Service System and creating widespread social upheaval. One measure of this was a sharp jump in the number of conscientious-objector registrations, which reached a record total of over sixty-one thousand in fiscal year 1971; the last three years of conscription witnessed nearly 145,000 successful C.O. claims. In fiscal year 1972, in fact, there were actually more conscientious objectors than draftees. These figures do not include the far greater number who attempted but failed to qualify as objectors (approximately 125,000 applied during fiscal 1971). In addition, many hundred thousands more swamped the system with draft-classification appeals to state or presidential review boards (over 168,000 such appeals in fiscal 1969). And millions of others obtained phantom disabilities, flocked to exempt occupations and schools, or employed any one of a hundred other means of dodging the draft. An entire generation seemed absorbed in just one overriding concern: to escape the clutches of Uncle Sam. The most visible and effective form of opposition to Selective Service was overt resistance. The Chicago Area Draft Resisters (Cadre) has estimated that by early 1971 total induction refusals exceeded fifteen thousand and the number of people failing to report approached one hundred thousand. By the latter years of the war, nearly every major city faced a huge backlog of induction-refusal court cases. In New York, for example, the eastern-district federal court listed 2,162 complaints of Selective Service violations in fiscal year 1970. The Oakland, California, area experienced particularly high levels of draft resistance: In a six-month period ending in March 1970, 50 per cent of those called failed to report, and 11 per cent of those that did show refused induction. In Chicago, the number of reported draft delinquencies tripled in three years, from 1,495 at the end of 1966 to 4,324 in December 1969. During fiscal year 1969, Selective Service officials listed 31,8311 delinquency investigations. For the entire Vietnam War era, 206,000 persons were reported delinquent to the Justice Department by Selective Service. In addition to encountering defiance of its orders, the draft system became the target of an increasing number of violent attacks?what amounted to a small-scale, guerrilla war. By September 1969, sixty-five of the nation?s four thousand local boards had been attacked or harassed, including eleven incidents of burning or mutilation of records. Draft Director Curtis Tarr?s first semiannual report opened with a description of ?systematic? attacks in June of 1970 that nearly destroyed all the records necessary to maintain the draft in the states of Delaware and Rhode island. In the same report, Tarr went on to lament ?a long list of attacks against Selective Service operations,? including bullet holes in the Marysville, California, office and assaults so frequent in Berkeley that the windows of the local board had to be replaced with plywood. A later report stated that ?a survey of disruptions at local boards showed almost 300 incidents from January through September, 1970.? Selective Service headquarters in 1972 furnished the House Internal Security Committee a copy of its ?events log? covering the period January 1971 through March 17, 1972. Occupying twenty pages of Congressional testimony, the remarkable document lists 196 acts of disruption directed against the draft during those months. It?s no wonder that the Nixon administration moved promptly to eliminate the draft as a principal means of fulfilling its promise to pacify America. [This doesn?t mean they?ll never use it again. It explains why Rumsfeld and the overwhelming majority of those in the Bush regime oppose it. They also know that the money to pay for new troops has to come out of the high-teach weapons budget, which feeds the war-profiteers building all those goodies. They also know that even if the draft started tomorrow, it would take several years to put the armed forces support structure in place to handle a massive increase in troop levels. Iraq won?t wait. Kerry and his stooges tried to whip up the issue to get ?the youth vote? instead of condemning the war, which is hardly a surprise, given the Democratic Party?s eternal and unchanging love of and commitment to the Empire.] from GI Special www.militaryproject.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 16:46:55 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:46:55 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Unbelievable-- soldiers court-martialed for taking badly-needed equipment Message-ID: I can only imagine the type of response this news is getting as it passes around the soldiers over there... ------------------- 6 Court-Martialed for Scrounging Equipment By JOHN McCARTHY, Associated Press Writer COLUMBUS, Ohio - At a time when some U.S. troops in Iraq are complaining they have to scrounge for equipment, six Ohio-based reservists were court-martialed for taking Army vehicles abandoned in Kuwait by other units so they could carry out their own unit's mission to Iraq. The soldiers say they needed the vehicles, and parts stripped from one, to deliver fuel to Iraq, but their former battalion commander said Sunday the troops should at least have returned the vehicles to their original units. Full: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=14&u=/ap/20041213/ap_on_re_us/soldiers_scrounging -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 16:48:43 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:48:43 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Girl, 10, Cuffed for Scissors in School Message-ID: Girl, 10, Cuffed for Scissors in School Saturday, December 11, 2004 4:30 PM EST The Associated Press A 10-year-old girl was placed in handcuffs and taken to a police station because she took a pair of scissors to her elementary school. School district officials said the fourth-grade student did not threaten anyone with the 8-inch shears, but violated a rule that considers scissors to be potential weapons. Administrators said they were following state law when they called police Thursday, and police said they were following department rules when they handcuffed Porsche Brown and took her away in a patrol wagon. "My daughter cried and cried," said her mother, Rose Jackson. "She had no idea what she did was wrong. I think that was way too harsh." Police officers decided the girl hadn't committed a crime and let her go. However, school officials suspended her for five days. Administrators will decide at a hearing whether she may return to class, or be expelled to a special disciplinary school. The scissors were discovered while students' belongings were being searched for property missing from a teacher's desk. School district officials have promised a crackdown on unruly students this year, and new policies give administrators the power to expel students for infractions as minor as violating the dress code, chronic tardiness or habitual swearing. Administrators say the steps are needed to regain control over a notoriously unruly school system, but some parents have complained that discipline has been overly harsh and that school officials have been too quick to call police about minor problems. To unsubscribe to the MOM list send an email to mom-l-unsubscribe @mailman.montana.com --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.811 / Virus Database: 552 - Release Date: 12/13/04 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 16:50:41 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:50:41 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: David Kelly Suicide Verdict Message-ID: rense.com Paramedics Query David Kelly Suicide Verdict By Adam Lusher and James Fraser-Andrews The Telegraph - UK 12-12-4 The paramedics who attended the death of Dr David Kelly, the government scientist at the centre of the controversy over the Iraq weapons dossier, last night disputed the Hutton inquiry's verdict that he had killed himself by slashing his wrist. Dave Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt insisted that there was relatively little blood at the scene when Dr Kelly's body was discovered in woods near his Oxfordshire home on July 18 last year. This, they said, made it extremely unlikely that the scientist died from the cuts on his left wrist. Dr Kelly's death last year caused a controversy that appeared to threaten the Government. He had been revealed as the source for a BBC radio report claiming that the Government had "sexed up" the case against Saddam Hussein in its dossier on the dictator's alleged weapons of mass destruction. The Hutton Report, which largely exonerated the Government, ruled that Dr Kelly died by "bleeding from incised wounds to his left wrist". However, Mr Bartlett and Ms Hunt - both paramedics for more than 15 years - said the lack of blood around Dr Kelly's body appeared not to support such a cause of death. Ms Hunt said: "I just think it is incredibly unlikely that he died from the wrist wound we saw. There just wasn't a lot of blood? When somebody cuts an artery, whether accidentally or intentionally, the blood pumps everywhere." Both paramedics gave evidence to the Hutton inquiry in September last year, explaining how they had tried unsuccessfully to revive the scientist with electrodes attached to his chest. Mr Bartlett told Lord Hutton that he was surprised there wasn't more blood if it was "an arterial bleed". Last night, he explicitly questioned Lord Hutton's findings on the cause of death. He told the Observer newspaper, in the presence of his solicitor: "Had it been a member of my family I wouldn't have accepted what they came out with." The paramedics, who spoke as individuals and not as representatives of Oxfordshire Ambulance Trust, their employer, did not suggest any other possible cause of death. After the Hutton inquiry, Nicholas Gardiner, the Oxfordshire Coroner, decided there was no public interest in re-opening the inquest as Dr Kelly's family had accepted Lord Hutton's verdict and had no desire to re-open the case. ? Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=QT31ZET2PULVHQFIQMFS NAG AVCBQ0JVC?xml=/news/2004/12/12/nkelly12.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/12/12/ixnew stop.html &secureRefresh=true&_requestid=29107 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 16:53:42 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:53:42 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: THE MOTHER OF ALL SCANDALS Message-ID: FYI THE MOTHER OF ALL SCANDALS Once again, Israel has been caught with spies at the highest levels of the US Government. Once again Israel denies wrongdoing, or faced with incontrovertible evidence (in this case one of the spies has reportedly cooperated with the FBI) dismisses the spying with the claim that such spying is harmless, because Israel and the United States are such good friends. Well, let us take a closer look at that idea of "harmless espionage" by recalling Israel's most famous failed spy, Jonathan Pollard. Jonathan Pollard is an American of Jewish descent, born in Galveston Texas, who established a career as an intelligence analyst for the US Navy. There have been many theories offered as to why Pollard decided to betray his country of birth to the Jewish state, but that Pollard did betray his country of birth to Israel is beyond all doubt. Pollard's defense was that he did not spy so much against the United States, only that he spied for Israel, sending them documents that in his opinion the US should have shared with Israel anyway. That it was never Pollards job to decide what documents Israel should have was apparently irrelevant. Pollard arrogated that authority to himself. From his position of trust within the US Navy, Pollard delivered over 1000 classified documents to Israel for which he was well paid. Included in those documents were the names of over 150 US agents in the Mideast, who were eventually "turned" into agents for Israel. But by far the most egregious damage done by Pollard was to steal classified documents relating to the US Nuclear Deterrent relative to the USSR and send them to Israel. According to sources in the US State Department, Israel then turned around and traded those stolen nuclear secrets to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas from the USSR to Israel. Other information that found its way from the US to Israel to the USSR resulted in the loss of American agents operating inside the USSR. Casper Weinberger, in his affidavit opposing a reduced sentence for Pollard, described the damage done to the United States thus, "[It is] difficult to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by... Pollard's treasonous behavior." This should end the suggestion that Israel's spies are harmless. They are not. The United States' nuclear deterrent cost an estimated five trillion taxpayer dollars during the 50s and 60s to build and maintain, and less than $100,000 for Pollard to undermine. Israel waited 13 years to admit Pollard had been spying for them, and now lobbies for his release, having granted him Israeli citizenship. Pollard is hardly the only Israeli spy operating in the United States. He just had the misfortune to get caught. Here are just a few examples of the Israeli spy operations that have been detected. 1947. Information collected by the ADL in its spy operations on US citizens is used by the House Select Committee on Unamerican Activities. Subcommittee Chair Clare Hoffman dismisses the ADL's reports on suspected communists as "hearsay." 1950 John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department's internal security section notes that the Israeli intelligence service is the second most active in the United States after the Soviets. 1954 A hidden microphone planted by the Israelis is discovered in the Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv. 1956 Telephone taps are found connected to two telephones in the residence of the US military attach? in Tel Aviv. 1954 "The Lavon Affair". Israeli agents recruit Egyptian citizens of Jewish descent to bomb Western targets in Egypt, and plant evidence to frame Arabs, in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations. Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon is eventually removed from office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-Gurion. 1965 Israel apparently illegally obtains enriched uranium from NUMEC Corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, "US an Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.") 1967 Israel attacks the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering vessel flying a US flag, killing 34 crew members. See "Assault on the Liberty," by James M. Ennes, Jr. (Random House). In 2004, Captain Ward Boston, Senior Legal Counsel for the Navy's Court of Inquiry into the attack swears under oath that President Lyndon Johnson ordered the investigation to conclude accident, even though the evidence indicates the attack was deliberate. Given the use by Israel of unmarked boats and planes, and the machine-gunning of USS Liberty's lifeboats, the most likely explanation is that USS Liberty was to be sunk with all hands, with evidence left to frame Egypt for the sinking. This would have dragged the US into the war on Israel's side. 1970 While working for Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Richard Perle is caught by the FBI giving classified information to Israel. Nothing is done. 1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, is overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. Bryen obtains a lawyer, Nathan Lewin, and the case heads for the grand jury, but is mysteriously dropped. Bryen later goes to work for Richard Perle. 1979 Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tries to penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a "Honey Trap", using a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl. 1985 The New York Times reports the FBI is aware of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, quoting [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal. The Justice Department does not prosecute. More- http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/motherofallscandals.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. APFN-1 YahooGroups: Subscribe: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apfn-1/join Unsubscribe: apfn-1-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com APFN MSG BOARD: `In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.' http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html APFN CONTENTS PAGE: http://www.apfn.org/old/apfncont.htm Without Justice, there is JUST_US! [LEAK-GATE] INVESTIGATING THE WHITE HOUSE http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/ Find elected officials, including the president, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, local officials, and more. http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/ APFN, PMB 107, 6630 W. CACTUS #B107, GLENDALE, AZ 85304 http://www.apfn.org/apfn/kenvardon.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:02:39 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:02:39 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Ex Spook Says ''Biggie Spooks Made Me Lie So Warwhore Bush Message-ID: FYI CIA: Ex Spook Says ''Biggie Spooks Made Me Lie So Warwhore Bush Could Wage War'' http://www.politrix.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1610 Posted on Thursday, December 09 @ 18:57:36 EST Topic: CIA WASHINGTON - A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused. The operative, who remains under cover, claims in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma." Ex-CIA officer alleges agency retaliated after he didn't falsify report By Dana Priest The Washington Post The subject of that reporting has been blacked out by the CIA, and the word "Iraq" does not appear in the heavily redacted version of the complaint, but other language and context make clear the officer's work related to prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In the lawsuit, the officer asserts CIA managers retaliated for refusing their demands by beginning a counterintelligence investigation of allegations he had sex with a female contact and by initiating an inspector general's investigation into allegations that he stole money meant to be used to pay contacts. The lawsuit marks the first public instance in which a CIA employee has charged directly that agency officials pressured him to produce intelligence to support the Bush administration's prewar position that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a grave and gathering threat, and to suppress information that ran counter to that view. "Their official dogma was contradicted by his reporting, and they did not want to hear it," said Roy Krieger, attorney for the 23-year officer of Middle Eastern descent. Anya Guilsher, a CIA spokeswoman, said the agency could not comment on the lawsuit. But she added, "The notion that CIA managers order officers to falsify reports is flat wrong. Our mission is to call it like we see it and report the facts." Critics of the Iraq war have asserted the administration pressured analysts and operators to produce information that bolstered the case for invading Iraq. Congressional investigations did not find such evidence, but found the CIA did not have enough spies in Iraq and that the analysis of the highly circumstantial evidence was mischaracterized as firmer than it was. Original Article via Seattle Times ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. APFN-1 YahooGroups: Subscribe: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apfn-1/join Unsubscribe: apfn-1-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com APFN MSG BOARD: `In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.' http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html APFN CONTENTS PAGE: http://www.apfn.org/old/apfncont.htm Without Justice, there is JUST_US! [LEAK-GATE] INVESTIGATING THE WHITE HOUSE http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/ Find elected officials, including the president, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, local officials, and more. http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/ APFN, PMB 107, 6630 W. CACTUS #B107, GLENDALE, AZ 85304 http://www.apfn.org/apfn/kenvardon.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:04:19 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:04:19 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Yushchenko says he's 'happy to be alive' Message-ID: (Note that they are saying he poisoned himself.) "We haven't seen anything like that for the past 100 years," he said. "I think it would be appropriate to compare this to the fall of the Soviet Union..." MSNBC Yushchenko says he's 'happy to be alive' Doctors say Ukraine candidate's poisoning likely intentional MSNBC News Services Updated: 7:45 a.m. ET Dec. 12, 2004VIENNA, Austria - Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko left a Vienna clinic on Sunday after being diagnosed with dioxin poisoning, saying he was just "happy to be alive." advertisement Speaking at a brief press conference before checking out of the elite Rudolfinerhaus clinic, Yushchenko lauded the decision of thousands in Ukraine to take to the streets to protest the outcome of presidential elections there. "We haven't seen anything like that for the past 100 years," he said. "I think it would be appropriate to compare this to the fall of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Berlin Wall." With his American-born wife acting as translator, he said the protests backing his allegations of vote-rigging had produced "a different country, a different nation." He predicted that "the regime that was in place for 14 years in Ukraine is now living its last days." Yushchenko thanked the medical staff, who determined he had been poisoned, which caused his dramatic facial disfigurement. "They've spent many days and nights with me and I am very happy to be alive in this world today," he said. "I thank these people for this." Yushchenko has accused Ukrainian authorities of trying to poison him in the runup to a presidential vote marred by fraud. Ukraine's Supreme Court voided the outcome of that vote, which Yushchenko lost to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, and a rerun of the ballot is slated for Dec. 26. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:07:54 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:07:54 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Nichols prosecutor resigns after prostitution arrest Message-ID: Nichols prosecutor resigns after prostitution arrest By The Associated Press A prosecutor who pursued the state case against Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols resigned Friday after being arrested last month in a prostitution sting. Oklahoma County Assistant District Attorney Lou Keel submitted his resignation letter to District Attorney Wes Lane. His resignation was effective immediately, Lane said. "While I regret that Mr. Keel's conduct has led to his separation from this office, I must make clear I expect my staff to be role models within the community," Lane said. Keel, 54, was arrested Nov. 11 as part of an Oklahoma City Police Department vice squad prostitution sting on an accusation that he offered to pay for sex. He first made the offer in a telephone call to a massage service advertisement police had placed in a publication, police said. Keel repeated the offer in a subsequent telephone call and was arrested after meeting the undercover officer at a hotel and offering to pay $50, police said. Keel had worked as a prosecutor in Oklahoma County for 23 years. He was part of the prosecution team that sought to convict Nichols of state murder charges and send him to death row. Nichols, who is already serving a federal life sentence for the death of eight federal agents, was convicted of 161 counts of murder. A jury deadlocked on whether to sentence him to death, and a judge gave Nichols a sentence of life in prison. Timothy McVeigh was executed in June 2001 for his role in the bombing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:13:11 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:13:11 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: 2004 Year-end Report From Rights Action Message-ID: [Sorry for repeat emailing for some] RIGHTS ACTION / Derechos en Accion DECEMBER 2004 We are proud to send you this 2004 year-end report. Only with your trust and support have we been able to accomplish what we summarize below. As of November 15, Rights Action has channeled more than US$750,000 of your financial donations and grants to the community-based organizations and projects summarized below. Our main focus continues to be supporting community-based development, relief and human rights organizations in Guatemala, Chiapas (Mexico) and Honduras. At the same time, we were able to provide emergency funding to community groups in Haiti responding to the humanitarian crisis and political repression. We aim to establish on-going relations with a few community development, relief and human rights organizations. We are proud to support the Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation, honoring the memory and continuing with the work of Nigerian poet and novelist, environmental and community activist, Kenule Saro-Wiwa, executed in 1994. We are also proud to have supported the annual "Herbert Anaya" Human Rights Forum in El Salvador, commemorating the life and work of Herbert Anaya, a human rights leader assassinated in 1987. Complimentary to the development, relief and human rights work of our partner groups, we continued our work to educate ourselves - North Americans - about the need to have a global and historic understanding about the issues of exploitation-poverty, discrimination, enviro-destruction and repression that our partner groups are confronting. North American and European countries have long been part of the problem of 'bad development', repression and enviro-destruction in the countries we work, and must be part of the solution to these deeply rooted problems. Thank-you for your trust and financial support. Please send us questions and comments about our work. Annie Bird & Grahame Russell, co-directors 416-654-2074 / info at rightsaction.org / www.rightsaction.org ====== TAX-CHARITABLE DONATIONS Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to: * United States: 1830 Connecticut Av, NW, Washington DC, 20009. * Canada: 509 St. Clair Ave W, box73527, Toronto ON, M6C-1C0. On-line donations: USA and Canada: www.rightsaction.org. Wire funds to Rights Action: contact info at rightsaction.org, 416-654-2074. ====== ORGANIZATIONS & PROJECTS SUPPORTED & WORK ACCOMPLISHED - 2004 We present here a summary of the community-based organizations and projects that Rights Action funded in 2004 in Guatemala, Chiapas (Mexico), Honduras and Haiti, as well as in Peru, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Nigeria. Also summarized are other aspects of our work: technical assistance for our partner groups; alliance-building between groups in the south and north-south; human rights accompaniment; north-south education and activism related to global development, relief and human rights issues. CHIAPAS ALCANZAMOS COMMUNITY WATER PROJECTS: Education and training in Indigenous communities in Chiapas and Guatemala, on water usage and source management; irrigation and potable water projects. COMMUNITY HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS NETWORK: Indigenous community focused human rights and legal work; emphasis on ILO Covenant 169; establishment of legal offices in Indigenous communities. VOICE OF CERRO HUECO: Seeks remedies for illegally jailed Indigenous people (Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chuj); humanitarian support for illegally detained and their families in isolated, poor communities. WOMEN OF CORN IN RESISTANCE: Education and training for Indigenous women-operated cooperatives, loan funds and a women's shelter. PALENQUE EDUCATION PROGRAM: High school scholarships for Mayan community-selected girls. SADEC - HEALTH & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: Education, training and supplies for health and dental promoters, and midwives, in Mayan communities and the Lacandon region. COSTA RICA Purchase of land to expand the Guanacaste Conservation Area. EL SALVADOR "Herbert Anaya" Annual Human Rights Forum. GUATEMALA ACOGUATE - GUATEMALAN ACCOMPANIMENT PROGRAM: Accompaniment for communities at risk of repression for participating in trials against former military officers. ADEP - PETEN ASSOCIATION OF DEVELOPMENT FOR THE UPROOTED: Micro-credit workshop. (Peten) ADIVIMA - ASSOCIATION FOR INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT OF VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE, MAYA-ACHI: Strengthening rule of law; support for Rio Negro and Marcos Sical trials; Panacal widows community development support. (Baja Verapaz) AESMAC - SANTA MARIA TZEJA STUDENT ASSOCIATION: Determining where Mayan scholarship students will 'give back to the community', teaching in rural, Mayan schools. (Quiche) AJCHMOL - AJCHMOL MAYA CULTURAL ORGANIZATION: Community education and organization related to global mining companies. (San Marcos) AMES - WOMEN IN SOLIDARITY: Promotes women's rights; emphasis on sexual, reproductive and labor rights; provides medical, legal and moral accompaniment to victims of violence. (Guatemala City) FRIENDS OF THE SUN: Construction of solar ovens and empowerment of women leaders. (South Coast and Foothills) AMRIS - RIO ISQUIZAL WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION: Rural Mayan women empowerment, video production and scholarships. (Huehuetenango) ANH - NEW HORIZONS ASSOCIATION: Operation of women's refuge; provides medical and moral support, legal services and daycare for battered and single women. (Quetzaltenego) ASCRA - 13TH OF MARCH, RIO NEGRO ASSOCIATION: Mayan-Achi people, displaced by World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank-funded Chixoy dam, work for reparations for damages and loss of life caused by dam; support community re-building projects. (Baja Verapaz) ASECSA - ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES: Trains health promoters and midwives throughout Guatemala; this project with Mayan-Achi women in Cubulco, with emphasis on environmental health. (Baja Verapaz) ATI - TOTO INTEGRATED ASSOCIATION: Quiche women, working with Mayan perspective, promoting natural medicines and self-esteem; addressing domestic violence, pregnancy, sexuality, venereal diseases, nutrition, reproductive apparatus, maternal lactation, maternity, puberty, vasectomy, love and fertility. (Quiche, Totonicapan) BJP - POPULAR LEGAL CLINIC: Operated by Maya-Achi genocide survivors in Rabinal; provides legal assistance and human rights education. (Baja Verapaz) CCDA - HIGHLANDS CAMPESINO COMMITTEE: Community education and organizing around: peace accords; community-controlled development; Mayan rights and culture; gender. CCDA exports fair trade coffee. (South coast and highlands) CEDAP - CENTER FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE & CONFLICT RESOLUCION: Formed by returned refugees; trains mayors, women's organizations and community leaders in conflict resolution; provides legal advice to victims of crimes and violations; accompanies victims to file complaints; establishing community legal defense centers. (Quiche) MAYA AJ-SYA EDUCATION PROGRAM: Provides schooling to poor children in Patzicia based on Mayan-Kaqchikel cosmovision. (Chimaltenango) COLEGIO "MIGUEL ANGEL ASTURIAS" EDUCATION PROGRAM: Primary school and scholarships for poor youth; specialized career in bi-lingual, multi-cultural education. (Quetzaltenango) CONCERN INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT: Training for rural health promoters; environmental health program for promoters; solar technology (for lighting clinics or community buildings), water tanks, rainwater catchment systems, and improved wood burning stoves. (Peten) CONIC - NATIONAL INDIGENOUS & CAMPESINO COUNCIL: Promotes sustainable development through program areas: gender, education and training, land and Mayan rights, legal defense, agricultural reactivation, communication. (Throughout country) COPAL AA EDUCATION PROGRAM: Community school, using Mayan-focused pedagogy, with teachers from Santa Maria Tzeja education program. CRPQ - COUNCIL OF Q'EQCHI' PEOPLE: Community organizing work in Chisec; mass grave exhumations; reparations and community development. (Alta Verapaz) CUC - CAMPESINO UNITY PROGRAM: Among oldest popular organizations in Guatemala; promotes land and labor rights for mainly Mayan campesinos and plantation laborers; hosted popular forum with CONIC and COPINH and MCA from Honduras, seeking 'best practices and exchange experiences. (Throughout country) INDIGENOUS DEFENSE CLINIC, LAS VERAPACES: Conflict resolution through application of Mayan laws; legal support for poor Maya-Achi women in cases of domestic violence, rape, divorce, child support and land conflicts. (Baja Verapaz) ENTRE RIOS EDUCATION PROGRAM: Primary and middle school for returned refugee population of Saxajche; dormitory; agriculture, computer and life-skills training. (Peten) ETESC - TECHNICAL TEAM FOR COMMUNITY HEALTH EDUCATION: Education and training for health promoters in mountain communities. Construction of water storage tanks in Petanac. (Huehuetenango) FAFG - GUATEMALAN FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY TEAM: Exhumation of mass graves and determination of identify and cause of death. FAMDEGUA - FAMILIES OF THE DISAPPEARED AND DETAINED: Support for community-based exhumation processes and pursuit of justice for crimes of the past. FNE - FOUNDATION NEW HOPE EDUCATION PROGRAM: Provides bi-lingual (Achi-Spanish), multi-cultural education for children of repression victims in Rabinal; promotes respect for human rights, cultural differences and the construction of a State that promotes justice, historical truth and participatory democracy. (Baja Verapaz) GADIMFS - ACTION GROUP FOR INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN, FAMILY & SOCIETY: Provides medical and psychological support and training, and other services to mainly Indigenous women. (San Marcos) IMPUNITY & COMMUNITY JUSTICE & RULE OF LAW - POPULAR FORUM: Brought together regional grassroots organizations to determine 'best practices' and build relations and alliances. INITIATIVE NORTHERN QUICHE: Community controlled development organizing and education work. (Quiche) IXCAN FRONTERIZO & IXTAHUACAN EDUCATION PROGRAM: Pre-schools in the rural communities of Fronterizo and Ixtabuacan. Women from the region received child-care training and workshops in: financial accounting; nutrition; literacy; children's and women's rights. (Quiche) JOYABAJ EDUCATION PROJECT: Operation of Patzula middle school and scholarships for high school and university students. (Quiche) MICRO-CREDIT & FAIR TRADE - POPULAR FORUM: Brought together regional partner organizations working on fair trade productive projects, to determine 'best practices' and to identify fair trade markets. MONUMENTS, EXHUMATIONS & RE-BURIALS: Support for mainly Mayan communities digging up mass graves, re-burying loved ones, and building monuments to commemorate their lives. (Across Guatemala) MTC - MOVEMENT OF RURAL WORKERS: Promotes rights of farm laborers, based on Guatemalan and international law, and builds solidarity and mutual support between farm workers. (San Marcos) SHELTER FOR THE ELDERLY: The Posada (in Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa) is run by a former Maryknoll priest and Fransiscan nun, providing support for elderly destitute people. (Escuintla) Q'ANIL EDUCATION PROGRAM: Scholarships, vocational training, library and cultural activities for Ixil youth, Nebaj. (Quiche) ROMERITOS ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDREN'S RIGHTS, MONSE?OR ROMERO: Provides a safe environment, food, education, medical and psychological attention, for poor children from urban barrios. (Guatemala City) SANTA MARIA TZEJA EDUCATION PROJECT: Primary and middle school program, plus high school and university scholarships for Mayan students from isolated communities in Ixcan. (Quiche) TRINIDAD EDUCATION PROGRAM: Operation, by returned-refugee community of Colonia 15 de Octubre La Trinidad, of an agricultural cooperative and a primary and middle school. (Escuintla) XIMBAXUC WATER PROJECT: Support for efforts to get potable water to village of Ximbaxuc. (Quiche) HAITI BAI - OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL LAWYERS: Provides legal assistance to victims of human rights violations and emergency support for victims of hurricanes. KONPAY / KONBIT POU AYITI: Supports community-controlled relief projects and educates about the situation in Haiti to North Americans. HONDURAS CEPAVEG: Grassroots organization defending locally-controlled development in communities affected by construction of hydro-electric dam in Gualaco. (Olancho) COPINH - CIVIC COUNCIL OF INDIGENOUS & POPULAR ORGANIZATIONS: Community organizing, education and activism related to community development issues, with particular focus on land and indigenous rights. (Intibuca, Lempira, La Paz, Santa Barbara) COPINH - MONTANA VERDE PROGRAM: Support and accompaniment for isolated community of Montana Verde, under siege from landowners and politicians using the legal and penal systems as tools of repression against community leaders. (Intibuca) MARTYRS OF GUAYMARAS: Works for campesino land rights; supports recuperation of lands unused by State and global fruit companies; emergency support for family of assassinated community development leader Cesar Virgilio Pinot. MAO - OLANCHO ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT: Community development education and organizing work. (Olancho) RISING ROOTS INTERNATIONAL: Popular computer and communications training course for COPINH. (Western Honduras) SIRIA VALLEY ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITTEE: Training, education and organizing for community-controlled development; addressing illegal logging and open-pit mining resulting in environment destruction and health issues, and repression against community leaders. (Francisco Morazan) JAMAICA Popular computer and communications training course, by Rising Roots International, for community groups in Kingston. NIGERIA AFRIDA - AFRICAN ENVIRONMENTAL & HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AGENCY: Research and community led initiatives in health, environment and human rights, in African mining communities. KEN SARO-WIWA FOUNDATION: Honoring the memory and continuing work of Nigerian poet and novelist, environmental and community activist, Kenule Saro-Wiwa. PERU ALAS - ASSOCIATION FOR LEGAL & SOCIAL ACTION: Provides humanitarian relief and legal education and support to former and current political prisoners. ====== OTHER AREAS OF WORK ALLIANCE-BUILDING & EXCHANGES: Community to community regional exchanges between partner groups from different Program Areas: education; micro-credit and fair trade; land struggles and indigenous rights; impunity and justice. Travel grants for community development leaders to go to forums dealing with global development, human rights and military issues. DELEGATIONS - EDUCATIONAL & ACTIVIST: Education delegations: Juniata College (Pennsylvania), Guatemala; University of Northern British Columbia (Canada), Guatemala; RA's annual Development and Human Rights activist seminar, Honduras and Guatemala; Global Exchange delegation, Honduras; RA delegation, Honduras. INVESTIGATIONS: Lis Lis case: In March 2002, 3 campesino leaders were massacred by security forces of Standard Fruit Company, subsidiary of Dole Fruit. Lanquin II case: Preparation of report on violence against campesinos on Lanquin II plantation, formerly a United Fruit Company and Del Monte Fresh Produce banana-producing plantation. Chixoy Dam Reparations Campaign: Efforts to seek redress for forcibly displaced Mayan-Achi victims of the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank funded Chixoy dam. Global Mining Companies versus Community Development: Reporting regularly on negative impact of North American mining companies on development needs of local Indigenous communities. PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE: "The Rio Negro Massacres", eye-witness testimony by genocide survivor Jesus Tecu Osorio. "Continuing the Struggle for Justice and Accountability in Guatemala: Making reparations a reality in the Chixoy Dam case", by COHRE in collaboration with Rights Action. SUPPORT PROGRAM FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEFENDERS: RA provides accompaniment - by staff or coordinating international volunteers - to community development and human rights leaders at risk of repression; preparation of urgent actions; helping with US and Canadian embassy paperwork; documenting cases of repression; providing emergency support to targeted individuals; coordinating legal support. TOURS: Gilberto Flores, Honduran community leader, toured the USA, educating about the effects of hydro-electric dams, water privatization, illegal lumbering, and repression of community development leaders. ====== WHAT YOU CAN DO ADOPT-A-COMMUNITY. Consider developing a long-term, north-south relationship with a needy and dynamic community (including educational exchanges, work exchanges and fund-raising) MAKE TAX-CHARITABLE DONATIONS TO "RIGHTS ACTION". Getting funds to community-based organizations is the front-line of work for global justice and equality EDUCATIONAL TRIPS SOUTH. Come to Guatemala, Chiapas and Honduras on educational delegations. Organize your own group of people, or join trips that Rights Action organizes. (Join our e-list for regular announcements - info at rightsaction.org) URGENT ACTION E-LIST. Be on our e-mail list and respond to urgent actions ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION. Set up your own e-mail and mailing lists and re-send our information to your lists. On request, we provide extra copies of our newsletter. Countering and getting around the dominance of the corporate media is a major challenge for work for global justice and equality. ====== STAFF & BOARD BOARD RIGHTS ACTION (USA): Annie Bird, Iain Guest, Grahame Russell, Julie Stewart, Michael Willis BOARD RIGHTS ACTION (CANADA): James MacDonald, Wayne Rosen, Merran Smith FULL-TIME STAFF: Guatemala: Annie Bird, Jane Pelly, Ruben Domingo and Tono Catalan. Toronto-Washington DC: Grahame Russell. Honduras: Sandra Cuffe PART-TIME STAFF: In Washington DC: Paul Magno, Freddie Schrider VOLUNTEERS & SHORT-TERM PROJECTS: Rosemary Burnett, Domingo Matias, Beth Brockland, Rosalind Gill, Kate Flatley, Tony Vaughan, Beckki Bolthouse, Mariaconcetta Patti -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:11:19 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:11:19 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Stories of US murder in Iraq Message-ID: Killings Sting Proud Battalion (LA Times) By Edmund Sanders, David Zucchino and Stephanie Simon Times Staff Writers BAGHDAD - The men from Task Force 1-41 fought the battle for Sadr City last summer, chasing Al Mahdi militiamen through the slums in 120-degree heat. A year earlier, the unit had helped lead the charge into Baghdad. The 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment has a distinguished combat history, from the D-Day landing to the Iraq (news - web sites) desert campaign of the Persian Gulf War (news - web sites). Its motto: "Straight and Stalwart." Last week, in a makeshift military courtroom, the unit's reputation came under assault. Soldiers from 1-41 described how a member of a rogue platoon hauled an unarmed Iraqi man away from his family one hot August morning and casually fired two shots into his head. Then he photographed the corpse. As disturbing as the testimony was for soldiers from a proud unit, it was just one episode in a shocking series of killings. Over a period of 26 days in August and September, seven 1-41 soldiers were charged with six murders on two continents. Soldiers have described renegade infantrymen who bragged about their kills. In one case, they testified, soldiers from a 1-41 platoon argued over who should get credit for killing an unarmed Iraqi because they had bet on who would be the first. Four of the victims were Iraqi civilians. In addition to the two alleged executions, soldiers were accused of shooting a critically wounded Iraqi teenager in a "mercy killing," and shooting an unarmed Iraqi, who, according to two soldiers, was waving a white cloth. Two more infantrymen were charged with murdering two fellow 1-41 soldiers in Kansas. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=1&u=/latimests/20041213/ts_latimes/killingsstingproudbattalion -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:15:41 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:15:41 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Photos from the U.S. massacre in Fallujah Message-ID: http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:17:32 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:17:32 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Just answer the question, Mr. Rumsfeld Message-ID: Clarence Page Just answer the question, Mr. Rumsfeld Published December 12, 2004 FROM: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0412120228dec12,1,6950166.column?coll=chi-news-col WASHINGTON -- If you don't like the message, knock the messenger, as an old spin doctor's motto goes. That's how some people are reacting to a soldier's question that knocked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld off his game during a town hall session in Kuwait last week. Spec. Thomas Wilson, a scout with a Tennessee National Guard unit, asked Rumsfeld why soldiers still have to fortify their canvas-covered Humvees with "hillbilly armor," scrap metal and ballistic-resistant glass that they dig out of landfills for protection. After a brief moment of stony silence, the comment brought a spontaneous eruption of "hooahs" and applause from other troops. It also brought a remarkably condescending response from Rumsfeld, who may have become too accustomed to treating reporters like annoyingly curious children to quickly shift to a tone appropriate for the combat men and women under his command. "You go to war with the Army you have," he said, "not the one you might want or the one you might wish to have at a later time." That was a curious comment, considering how much time President Bush's Defense Department has had to build up to "the Army we might want." Rumsfeld deliberately held down the manpower and support for Iraq against the strong advice of former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki and other generals who said more troops and equipment would be needed. The Army we have is what Rumsfeld wanted, not what the generals said we needed. Now, Rumsfeld assured the troops, the Pentagon is pushing its suppliers to produce armored vehicles as fast as possible. But his claim brought swift dispute from some of the makers of armor and Humvees. The factories have been running well below capacity, spokesmen said, but the Pentagon had not taken them up on the offers to produce more armored vehicles. Meanwhile, explosive devices at Iraqi roadsides--against which our troops could use more armor--have caused about half of America's war casualties. Yet Rumsfeld added what may be the world's least necessary caveat: "You can have all the armor in the world on a tank; it can [still] be blown up." Gee, thank you, Mr. Secretary. And happy holidays to you. I don't know when Rumsfeld will take questions from soldiers again, but the day after you-know-what freezes over sounds about right. Yet hard as it may be to criticize Spec. Wilson for asking a question that undoubtedly weighs on the mind of many soldiers in Iraq, some people are finding ways to criticize the combat newspaper correspondent who, it turns out, had a hand in Wilson's question. Edward Lee Pitts, a Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter who is embedded with Wilson's Tennessee National Guard unit, took credit in an e-mail that was later leaked to Internet sites. In his e-mail, Pitts said that after he learned reporters would not have a chance to question Rumsfeld, he worked on questions in advance of the meeting with two soldiers from the unit. In a letter to readers, Pitts' newspaper acknowledged that the reporter should have mentioned his role in his reporting, but otherwise, his editors supported him, as they should. He did not deceive anyone. No one forced Wilson to ask the question, which President Bush later agreed was a legitimate question to ask. Yet some partisan critics, apparently unable to defend Rumsfeld, attacked Pitts. "He created news in order to cover it," said conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh. "... We found out the whole thing ... is a setup." Setup to do what? Tell the truth? A Pentagon spokesman, huffed that the meeting was "intended for soldiers to have dialogue with the secretary" and that no one should have "interfered with that opportunity, whatever the intention." Hey, you want dialogue? You got dialogue! Here's a bigger question: Why should reporters have to resort to asking questions through soldiers in order to get an answer and, one hopes, some action from the Bush administration on a problem like vehicle armor? Our soldiers in Iraq are not whining about this. They courageously take on dangerous missions every day. Afterward they want to get home safe. The rest of us should support them with something more substantive than flag-waving. That's not too much to ask. ---------- E-mail: cptime at aol.com Copyright ? 2004, Chicago Tribune ===== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:18:36 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:18:36 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Strain begins to show as Iraq stretches military thin Message-ID: Strain begins to show as Iraq stretches military thin Fri Dec 10,11:49 AM ET FROM: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=742&e=1&u=/usatoday/20041210/cm_usatoday/strainbeginstoshowasiraqstretchesmilitarythin David Qualls is an Arkansas truck driver and Army veteran who decided last year to get back into the service on a part-time basis. Qualls took the National Guard up on its appealing short-term recruitment offer, called "Try One." He would serve one year in the Arkansas Guard with supposedly no further commitment unless he wanted to continue. Almost 18 months later, Qualls, 35, is still in the Guard, with no end in sight. He's been ordered back to Iraq this weekend for a second tour. On Monday, Qualls and seven other soldiers sued the Army in federal court for its policy known as "stop-loss," which keeps personnel in their units even though their terms of enlistment have run out. Growing resistance to reserve call-ups and extended enlistments is exposing how unprepared military planners were for the challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan. Globally, fighting forces are spread painfully thin, severely limiting options if another crisis should arise. And, not surprisingly, recruitment is lagging, particularly in the Guard. That fact raises the specter of mounting shortages. Since stop-loss orders went out last winter and reserve call-ups intensified this year, other lawsuits have been filed. Many plaintiffs, including Qualls' seven colleagues, are identified only as "John Doe" because they fear retaliation for challenging the Army. Wednesday, in a rare and brave public display of grievances, soldiers in Kuwait used what was supposed to be a morale-boosting visit by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to challenge him on the stop-loss policy - and on a shortage of armored vehicles in Iraq. They were asking the right man. Since toppling Saddam Hussein with a smaller force than many thought necessary, Rumsfeld and President Bush have repeatedly underestimated the strength of the Iraqi insurgency and the need for troops to suppress it. The U.S. force is now belatedly being boosted to 150,000 in an effort to make the country safe enough to hold the scheduled Jan. 30 election. If there is to be any hope of even a modestly successful conclusion to Bush's Iraqi enterprise, the military has little choice but to do whatever it takes to come up with the needed numbers. The fine print in recruitment contracts, and a presidential emergency order issued in 2001, bolster the government's legal position with recalcitrant soldiers such as Qualls. The courts historically have not been sympathetic to lawsuits challenging military authority in time of war. A judge refused Wednesday to issue a restraining order to block Qualls' return to Iraq. But, as Rumsfeld heard firsthand, it all comes at great expense: declining troop morale, soldiers distracted by family stress and problems with recruiting and retention. If nothing else comes from the U.S. involvement in Iraq, it has provided a stark lesson for the future. The country has to be willing to pay for and commit the forces necessary to achieve its foreign-policy goals. If those goals require large and open-ended troop commitments, the choices are few and unappealing: Expand the size of the military, both the full-time force and the Guard and reserves. But that is costly. Personnel costs are already running more than $100 billion a year, up more than 35% since 2001 and competing for funds with new high-tech defenses and weaponry. Reorganize how the military is deployed, perhaps by pulling more troops out of their Cold War emplacements in Europe, Japan and Korea. But that is fraught with potential diplomatic repercussions from allies in Europe concerned about a return to U.S. isolationism and friends in East Asia worried about a nuclear threat from North Korea. Not surprisingly, there is strong resistance to both options, within the Pentagon and elsewhere. In which case, the United States is going to have to be more careful about being prepared for the fights it picks. That's another, more important kind of stop-loss policy ===== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:19:45 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:19:45 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Bulletproof vests Iraq-bound - FL Message-ID: Dec 9, 8:01 PM Bulletproof vests Iraq-bound Mims mother collects nearly 500 to help protect Marine son's unit BY TOM BREEN FLORIDA TODAY FROM: http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/localstoryN1210HUMVEE0.htm Joanne Homer would do anything for her son, the Marine. Joanne Homer of the Brevard County Sheriff's Department hands Susan Johnson some bulletproof vests. Central Florida law enforcement agencies donated the vests to Homer's son, Marine Sgt. Jessie Holton and his fellow Marines, who will be deployed to Iraq in January. Image by Rik Jesse, FLORIDA TODAY And the Mims mom is doing it now -- trying to keep him from harm by helping gather nearly 500 bulletproof vests for the troops in his unit to use to protect the Humvees they'll ride through the war zone in Iraq. Similar concerns about a lack of armored protection for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are growing. On Wednesday, a Tennessee National Guard soldier in Kuwait asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld why "we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor vehicles." On Thursday, a Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, acknowledged that the Pentagon had not anticipated the number of homemade bombs, called improvised explosive devices, that are striking vehicles, armored and unarmored. Homer's son, Sgt. Jessie Holton, 25, is a combat veteran who previously served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He joined the Marines two days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack. His unit is headed to Iraq early next year. "He was ambushed in Afghanistan in a Humvee, but wasn't injured, knock on wood," Homer said. "He told me the vests might stop some of the damage from homemade bombs on the roads. He loves the Marines and is determined to do everything he can to protect the boys in his unit." Around the country, other families and community members have taken similar actions. In Alabama, for example, soldiers and high school students from the small town of Foley put improvised armor on vehicles before the unit went to Iraq. The bulletproof vests heading to Holt's unit are coming from law-enforcement agencies around Central Florida, including many in Brevard County. The vests are not being used by police agencies because of expired warranty dates, but still are effective, officials said. By lining the inside of their vehicles, the Marines hope to add a measure of protection. "These vests have been retired from police service because of having passed their warranty date, but, to be honest, I would take a shot wearing any one of these vests," said Sheriff Phil Williams, who spearheaded the effort to gather the vests. "They're designed to last." Homer, who works in the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, said her son called her at work in October and asked if she could find some bulletproof vests. She asked Sheriff's Lt. Susan Johnson, a supervisor in Homer's office to help. Johnson contacted Williams, who made phone calls around the state. The law-enforcement agencies responded immediately. Homer said her son drove about 80 of the vests from Brevard to his unit at Camp Lejeune, N.C., during the Thanksgiving holiday. Capt. Will Klumpp, a spokesman for Sgt. Holton's 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Camp Lejeune, said he was unaware of the Brevard effort, but said the 26th was hardening all of its vehicles before deployment next year. Meanwhile, Homer she will drive the rest of the vests to Camp Lejeune next Thursday, accompanied by her husband, Sgt. Mike Homer of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, Lt. Johnson and some others. Contact Breen at 242-3612 or tbreen at 242-3612. ===== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:20:59 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:20:59 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Valley firm disputes Rumsfeld, is ready to supply Army armor - AZ Message-ID: Valley firm disputes Rumsfeld, is ready to supply Army armor Joseph A. Reaves The Arizona Republic Dec. 10, 2004 12:00 AM FROM: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1210armor10.html A Valley firm that provides critical armor for military vehicles in Iraq is operating at only half-capacity despite complaints from soldiers who say they are being sent into combat without adequate protection. "We've been telling the Pentagon for months that we have the capacity to double our production," said former U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, a consultant for ArmorWorks of Tempe. "We're ready, and we haven't heard a thing." The issue of adequate armor protection for military vehicles in Iraq became front-page news this week when a National Guard soldier from Tennessee stood up at a town hall meeting in Kuwait and confronted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles, and why don't we have those resources readily available to us?" Army Spc. Thomas Wilson asked the secretary. Wilson's surprisingly blunt question drew applause from fellow soldiers, who are preparing to ship out from Kuwait to Iraq. Rumsfeld said he spoke with a general at the Pentagon before traveling to Kuwait and was told the military was doing its best to provide troops the resources they need. "It's essentially a matter of physics," he said. "It isn't a matter of money. It isn't a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It's a matter of production and capability of doing it." Salmon said that simply isn't true, at least in the case of ArmorWorks, which has a $30 million contract to provide composite armor kits that are fitted onto Humvee vehicles in three hours by soldiers in the field. "The Pentagon right now, in its postdebacle spin, is trying to convince everyone that contractors are operating at peak capacity," Salmon told The Arizona Republic. "In our case it's flat-out not accurate." Salmon, a conservative Republican who narrowly lost the 2002 governor's race, has been a paid consultant for ArmorWorks for more than a year. He said the firm is producing about 300 armor kits a month but easily can ship twice that many. The $30 million contract the Pentagon awarded ArmorWorks in September called for the Tempe factory to produce 1,500 armor kits by January. Salmon said 1,200 already have been shipped, but ArmorWorks hasn't been told whether it will be offered a new contract. "We haven't been told anything about what's going on," he said. "I think a lot of this is the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing." The Department of Defense issued several news releases on its Web site Thursday in the wake of Rumsfeld's remarks and the criticism from the soldiers in Kuwait. "The issue Specialist Wilson raised at the town hall meeting in Kuwait is important," one release read. "This department takes the matter seriously and is addressing it aggressively." Another release said the military is "producing roughly 450 up-armored Humvees every month and sending them to units in Iraq. Eric Ruff, a Defense Department spokesman, said all but about 4,000 of the 19,000 Humvees being used by the U.S. Central Command in Iraq are "up-armored or have been modified at the units level with add-on armor kits" like the ones produced by ArmorWorks. Those that aren't armored yet are confined to use inside military compounds, according to the Pentagon. Salmon, however, pointed out that just six weeks ago, members of an Army Reserve quartermaster company refused to go on a supply mission because they said their equipment was inadequate. The kits that ArmorWorks provides for the military are made of composite ceramic rather than steel, which has been the traditional protective plating for military vehicles since World War I. "The steel weighs two-thirds more than our stuff," Salmon said. "It exceeds the payload capacity on the vehicles. The vehicles end up breaking down or losing their maneuverability." In addition, soldiers have noted the ceramic composite tends to absorb shrapnel or deflect it, while steel armor often creates even more deadly metal shards. Salmon said he joined ArmorWorks amid an earlier controversy when family members of soldiers in Iraq were coming to the company to buy personal body army because the military wasn't able to provide adequate supplies. "Unfortunately, this is deja vu all over again, isn't it," Salmon said. Reach the reporter at joseph.reaves at arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8125. ===== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:34:42 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:34:42 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Sarah Gisborne Message-ID: Sarah Gisborne Sarah Gisborne has been moved to HMP Holloway. She is serving a sentence for SHAC-related offences. Please send Sarah letters and cards of support. Sarah Gisborne [LT5393], HMP Holloway, Parkhurst Road, London N7 0NU. Recommended website: www.vivisection-absurd.org.uk Information available free by email from vivisectionkills at hotmail.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stateyourcause/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StopNightmareDogIndustries/ hlssuckslists.riseup.net "Live in peace with the animals. Animals bring love to our hearts, and warmth to our souls"-Colleen Klaum ?The ultimate measure of a community is not where it stands in times of comfort and convenience, but where it stands in times of challenge and controversy.? -Martin Luther King Jr. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 16:58:14 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:58:14 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: So Who Poisoned Yushchenko's Soup? Message-ID: rense.com So Who Poisoned Yushchenko's Soup? By Susan Viets in Kiev The Independent - UK 12-12-4 It is a story worthy of Frederick Forsyth. The candidate most likely to take the helm of a former Soviet republic, but who has powerful enemies in neighbouring Russia, is disfigured by a deadly poison administered via his soup. The mystery is who poisoned Viktor Yushchenko and why? Mr Yushchenko, who believes he was cheated out of the presidency of Ukraine by a fraudulent election, is clear on the second point. "The aim, naturally, was to kill me," he said yesterday outside the Vienna clinic where doctors confirmed he had been poisoned by a dioxin. If it was an assassination attempt, it was botched. Dioxins can kill. They are a group of chemicals produced as byproducts from factories that use chlorine and which can cause liver damage and cancer. The most dangerous, TCCD, is found in Agent Orange, which was used to devastating effect by America during the Vietnam war. Mr Yushchenko's doctor, Michael Zimpfer, said: "If this dose had been higher, it may have caused death. Instead, the politician got away with chloracne, a virulent form of acne and a hallmark of dioxin poison. It destroyed his looks but should clear up in about three years. As a pro-Western politician expected to win last month's election, Mr Yushchenko was not short of enemies and he blames the Ukraine authorities for his poisoning. His opponent Viktor Yanukovych, the Prime Minister, strenuously denies this. Dioxins spread quickly through the body and the poison was probably administered on the day Mr Yushchenko was taken ill by being mixed with soup or cream. Mr Yushchenko first complained of pains on 5 September after meeting the head of Ukraine's secret service, Ihor Smeshko. But the parliamentary commission which investigated the mystery illness in October lists other places he ate or drank that day. Mr Smeshko promised the secret service would take action. Supporters of Mr Yushchenko carried their cause to the pro-government eastern heartlands yesterday as campaigning in the country's repeat presidential election race got under way. It follows the "orange revolution" of more than two weeks of street protests against last month's falsified voting results. The Russian-speaking south-east will be the battleground in the vote scheduled for 26 December. The outcome will determine whether Ukraine will emerge as a unified country or one with deep divisions between the south-east and the central and western regions, which now appear solidly to support Mr Yushchenko. The Prime Minister is spending most of his time in Donetsk, where he was once governor and can still count on core support. Important members of Mr Yanukovich's campaign team, including his campaign manager and the former head of the central bank, Serhii Tyhypko, have abandoned him. Yet he is still endorsed by key figures in Russia. Hundreds of thousands of Yushchenko supporters have already signed up to be volunteers in the campaign. ? 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=592347 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 16:57:09 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:57:09 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: US troops fire off another volley of shots Message-ID: http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=041210033510.1bgx7r1p.xml FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - US troops fire off another volley of shots amid the trashed houses of Fallujah, hunting down new adversaries carrying a potentially deadly weapon that threatens to plague reconstruction efforts. But this time the marines are not chasing down the insurgents who they defeated in a devastating assault on the city last month. Their quarry is stray animals grown fat on the flesh from corpses and who could harbor rabies. The marines gather briefly over a pile of trash, one pointing across the dirt lot to a row of burned out homes where moments before a dog was seen loping for cover amid the ruined buildings. "I think we wounded a couple and they took off that way," he said, as another marine pulled his quarry onto a ridge, its bloodied head rolling side to side in the dust. As their numbers have swelled, so has the risk the animals pose to the tens of thousands of people expected to return to Fallujah in the coming weeks. The marines have been told to organize special details to "thin out" the battered city's animal population. Medical personnel say rabies is one of the biggest threats to people returning to the city. Cases of the disease were already reported in humans in Al-Anbar province before the Fallujah attack. "Rabies, and standing water, are our most immediate concerns," said Captain Dennis Staggs, a surgeon with the 1st Marine Exepditionary Force (MEF), adding that among a host of measures suggested to head off a health crisis, medical officers said feral animals should be cleared from the city. "If you consider the entire public health situation, with nobody in town, there's no public health crisis, and if it is prepared correctly there won't be a health crisis," Staggs said Wednesday. Standing by his humvee last week in northern Fallujah, marine Lance Corporal Will Lathrop of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit said, "The problem has gotten bad enough that there's actually an order for this," referring to a command issued recently to deal with Fallujah's feral animals. His convoy of three humvees and a truck had rolled briefly into the school occupied by 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines' Charlie Company and several men with shotguns stood around the vehicles smoking. Rock-n-roll played loudly from one of the vehicle's radios as marines just outside the base walls fired off several more shots at flashes of fur among the piles of rubble. It was a good day for this self-described "goon squad" -- a dozen or so black plastic trash bags heavy with dead animals were dumped unceremoniously in the back of a truck. "It eliminates the threat," marine Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert, spokesman for the 1st MEF, said Wednesday. "Before they (residents) go into the city, dogs and cats probably should be cleared out. They're a source of rabies and other diseases." But there was none of the bloodlust that many marines say they felt last month as they stormed the Sunni-Muslim enclave and wrested it away from insurgents during several days of vicious fighting. A gunnery sergeant stalked past the convoy, tersely ordering his executioners to put on surgical gloves before handling the dead animals, his mouth pulled into the tight grimace of a man trying to finish the job before him as quickly as possible. "This is hard on these guys, especially killing the dogs. But these animals have been eating dead bodies. They can spread disease," said Lieutenant Aaron Brown, grimly reciting the toll for the day -- several cats and at least one dog. Copyright ? 2004 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:22:25 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:22:25 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] CBS News: 5500 Servicemen Refused to Ship Out, Desert Message-ID: Deserters: We Won't Go To Iraq CBSNews.com Dec. 8, 2004 The Pentagon says more than 5,500 servicemen have deserted since the war started in Iraq. 60 Minutes Wednesday found several of these deserters who left the Army or Marine Corps rather than go to Iraq. Like a generation of deserters before them, they fled to Canada. What do these men, who have violated orders and oaths, have to say for themselves? They told Correspondent Scott Pelley that conscience, not cowardice, made them American deserters. "I was a warrior. You know? I always have been. I've always felt that way -- that if there are people who can't defend themselves, it's my responsibility to do that," says Pfc. Dan Felushko, 24. It was Felushko's responsibility to ship out with the Marines to Kuwait in Jan. 2003 to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. Instead, he slipped out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., and deployed himself to Canada. "I didn't want, you know, 'Died deluded in Iraq' over my gravestone," says Felushko. "If I'd gone, personally, because of the things that I believed, it would have felt wrong. Because I saw it as wrong, if I died there or killed somebody there, that would have been more wrong." He told Pelley it wasn't fighting that bothered him. In fact, he says he started basic training just weeks after al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington -- and he was prepared to get even for Sept. 11 in Afghanistan. But Felushko says he didn't see a connection between the attack on America and Saddam Hussein. "(What) it basically comes down to, is it my right to choose between what I think is right and what I think is wrong?" asks Felushko. "And nobody should make me sign away my ability to choose between right and wrong." But Felushko had signed a contract to be with the U.S. Marine Corps. "It's a devil's contract if you look at it that way," he says. How does he feel about being in Toronto while other Marines are dying in Fallujah, Najaf and Ramadi? "It makes me struggle with doubt, you know, about my decision," says Felushko. What does he say to the families of the American troops who have died in Iraq? "I honor their dead. Maybe they think that my presence dishonors their dead. But they made a choice the same as I made a choice," says Felushko. "My big problem is that, if they made that choice for anything other than they believed in it, then that's wrong. Right? And the government has to be held responsible for those deaths, because they didn't give them an option." Felushko's father is Canadian, so he has dual citizenship, and he can legally stay in Canada. But it's not that easy for other American deserters. Canadian law has changed since the Vietnam era. Back then, an estimated 55,000 Americans deserted to Canada or dodged the draft. And in those days, Canada simply welcomed them. But today's American deserters, such as Brandon Hughey, will need to convince a Canadian immigration board that they are refugees. Hughey volunteered for the Army to get money for college. He graduated from high school in San Angelo, Texas, just two months after the president declared war in Iraq. What did he think about the case for going to war? "I felt it was necessary if they did have these weapons, and they could end up in our cities and threaten our safety," says Hughey. "I was supportive. At first, I didn't think to question it." He says at first, he was willing to die "to make America safe." And while Hughey was in basic training, he didn't get much news. But when he left basic training, he started following the latest information from Iraq. "I found out, basically, that they found no weapons of mass destruction. They were beginning to come out and say it's not likely that we will find any -- and the claim that they made about ties to al Qaeda was coming up short, to say the least," says Hughey. "It made me angry, because I felt our lives were being thrown away as soldiers, basically." When Hughey got orders for Iraq, he searched the Internet and found Vietnam era war resisters willing to show him the way north. In fact, they were willing to drive him there, and a Canadian television news camera went along. Hughey had an invitation to stay with a Quaker couple that helped Americans avoid the draft during Vietnam. >From Fort Hood, Texas, to St. Catherine's in Ontario, Canada, Hughey crossed the border, duty free. Pelley read letters about Hughey's desertion that were sent to the editor of a San Antonio newspaper. "It makes me sad to know that there's that much hate in the country," says Hughey. "Before I joined the Army, I would have thought the same way. Anyone who said no to a war, I would have thought them a traitor and a coward. So, in that essence, I'm thankful for this experience, because it has opened my eyes and it has taught me not to take things on the surface." However, he adds: "I have to say that my image of my country always being the good guy, and always fighting for just causes, has been shattered." Hughey, and other deserters, will be represented before the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board by Toronto lawyer Jeffry House. His clients will have to prove that, if they are returned to the United States, they wouldn't just be prosecuted for what they did - they would be also be persecuted. How will House make that claim? "People should have a right to say, 'I'm not fighting in that war. That's an illegal war. There's illegal stuff going on the ground. I'm not going,'" says House. "And anyone who says soldiers should go to jail if they don't fight in an illegal war is persecuting them." And it's something House has experience with. In 1969, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin, got drafted, and spent the rest of his life in Canada. House's legal strategy will focus on his contention that President Bush is not complying with international law. But how will he defend volunteers who signed a contract? "The United States is supposed to comply with treaty obligations like the U.N. charter, but they don't," says House. "When the president isn't complying with the Geneva Accords or with the U.N. charter, are we saying, 'Only the soldier who signed up when he was 17 -- that guy has to strictly comply with contract? The president, he doesn't have to?' I don't think so. I don't think that is fair." The first deserter to face the Canadian refugee board is likely to be Spc. Jeremy Hinzman of Rapid City, S.D. He joined the military in Jan. 2001, and was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne. He wanted a career in the military, but over time, he decided he couldn't take a life. "I was walking to chow hall with my unit, and we were yelling, 'Train to kill, kill we will,' over and over again," recalls Hinzman. "I kind of snuck a peek around me and saw all my colleagues getting red in the face and hoarse yelling -- and at that point a light went off in my head and I said, 'You know, I made the wrong career decision.'" But Hinzman said he didn't want to get out of the Army: "I had signed a contract for four years. I was totally willing to fulfill it. Just not in combat arms jobs." While at Fort Bragg, Hinzman says he filled out the forms for conscientious objector status, which would let him stay in the Army in a non-combat job. While he waited for a decision, he went to Afghanistan and worked in a kitchen. But later, the Army told him he didn't qualify as a conscientious objector, and he was ordered to fight in Iraq. Hinzman decided to take his family to Canada, where he's been living off savings accumulated while he was in the military. Wasn't he supposed to follow orders? "I was told in basic training that, if I'm given an illegal or immoral order, it is my duty to disobey it," says Hinzman. "And I feel that invading and occupying Iraq is an illegal and immoral thing to do." "But you can't have an Army of free-thinkers," says Pelley. "You wouldn't have an Army." "No, you wouldn't. I think there are times when militaries or countries act in a collectively wrong way," says Hinzman. "I mean, the obvious example was during World War II. Sure, Saddam Hussein was a really bad guy. I mean, he ranks up there with the bad ones. But was he a threat to the United States? Still, isn't it worth fighting to free the people of Iraq? "Whether a country lives under freedom or tyranny or whatever else, that's the collective responsibility of the people of that country," says Hinzman. Hinzman and the other American deserters have become celebrities of sorts in the Canadian anti-war movement. Only a few of the reported 5,500 deserters are in Canada, but House says he's getting more calls from nervous soldiers all the time. Wouldn't the right and honorable thing for deserters to do be to go back to the United States, and turn themselves in to the Army? "Why would that be honorable?" asks House. "(Deserters signed a contract) to defend the Constitution of the United States, not take part in offensive, pre-emptive wars. I don't think you should be punished for doing the right thing. What benefit is there to being a martyr? I don't see any." Hinzman began his hearing before the Canadian Immigration and Refugee board last Monday. But there's no telling when he'll find out if he'll be allowed to stay in Canada -- or be sent back to the United States to face the consequences. The maximum penalty for deserting in wartime is death. But it's more typical for a soldier to draw a sentence of five years or less for deserting in wartime. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/06/60II/main659336.shtml _______________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:24:05 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:24:05 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] "Somewhere out there, a night bird cries." Message-ID: In the Boreal Forest, A Developing Storm By DeNeen L. Brown Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, December 12, 2004; Page D01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58360-2004Dec11?language=printer POPLAR RIVER -- The elders used to say that one should not make a sound when crossing the water here, lest one awaken the thunderbird who lives just up there, up there. Up where? Up there, says Victor Bruce, an elder of the Poplar River First Nation. He is pointing above the trees in this boreal forest, where migrating songbirds sing, and fleeting herds of woodland caribou, silent gray ghosts of the boreal, hide. Bruce says he believes in the thunderbird in the same way he believes that the river is alive and rocks can move, that trees cry when they are cut and the earth cannot be owned. And all the while the thunderbird watches, waiting to descend when it is disturbed, then swooping down, creating thunder and lightning in its wrath, troubling the waters. For thousands of years the Poplar River First Nation, an Ojibway Indian tribe in Manitoba, crossed this water quietly, ever so quietly, not a sound, paddles slipped into the water as if they were slicing clouds. Quietly the people moved from one shore to the next, from one plane to the other, from one generation to the next. Quietly. Disturbing the thunderbird meant trouble for us all. Bruce is wondering why others don't believe -- can't believe that building a road into this forest opens the path to its destruction, that cutting down the trees to make pulp into toilet paper seems wasteful. Why companies with their bottom lines and consumers with their insatiable needs don't think of the trees as having voices and the animals living in them as having souls. Why don't they believe in the thunderbird? "It's our guardian, something that watches over you all the time," Bruce is saying. "It's always something that's keeping an eye on you. The old-timers, the ancestors, they used to tell us to respect all the animals and respect the birds. The thunderbird always is flying high. He's always watching everything on Earth. He's someplace in the sky." From a muddy bank of a healing camp on an island on the tribe's traditional territory on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, Bruce, 72, looks upon the water and he is quiet. The water is quiet too. Surrounding it is a green forest; the sky is gray. The water is clean. The place is surreal. He is in the thick of this place, considered the last frontier of the wilderness in North America. It covers half of Canada's land. The forest, named after Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind, is threatened by encroaching development. Scientists call the boreal one of the Earth's "lungs"; the other is the Amazon rain forest. Together they "breathe out" oxygen while absorbing millions of tons of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas thought to contribute to global warming. The forest is coveted by those who want to cut trees, build hydropower dams, mine and develop it, seeking gas and oil. The Poplar River First Nation, a community based about 400 miles north of Winnipeg, is trying to stop that. Not long ago, loggers came here with promises of building an all-weather road in a place that is now only accessible year-round by air. The road would open the door for others to come in. Poplar River elders said no. Developers promised them jobs. The elders said no. Developers promised them economic prosperity, a new way of life, and the elders said no. The elders had seen what happened to the community of the Pimicikamak Cree, north of Lake Winnipeg, not so far from here. So the elders in Poplar River said no. First Nation tribes have a significant voice in development projects in their traditional territories. "The reason why we protect this land is, in other communities the forest is wiped out already. Now they have nothing," says Bruce. He is now sitting in a huge tepee at the healing camp, a retreat where there is no water running in pipes, no electricity, no artificial heat. The faint scent of burning sage, used to cleanse people of their impurities, lingers in the tent. A fire smolders in the center of the tent. Someone has discovered moose droppings near the camp site and has brought them near the fire to be examined. The perfect droppings indicate the moose on this island are healthy and there is still hope. The Pimicikamak Cree watched a utility come and build a dam for hydroelectricity but then, they say, shorelines washed away and forest was swallowed by rising water that polluted the lakes and rivers. Now, they say, they drink polluted water. Bruce continues, "Now they have nothing to go to. The companies wanted to give us an all-weather road. But if we have that road, the same thing will happen here." He, like most aboriginal elders, professes: "The land, we don't own it. We look out for it. The elders have stated the creator has given us life. Without our land, our people will die. We get everything from this land. But we don't destroy it. If we let them build an all-weather road, they will destroy it. After they clear it out, what will we have? Why should we say, 'Okay, you can come around and cut pulp?' " Pulp Reality Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that the boreal forest is "North America's greatest conservation opportunity." Most of the world's original forests have been logged and developed. About 80 percent of the Canadian boreal forest is still uncut by roads. Most of its 1.3 billion acres is predominantly owned by the government and inhabited by tribes who call themselves First Nation. They live in and rely on the forests for their food, their livelihoods and their spiritual connection to the world. Last month in Thailand, the World Conservation Congress, recognizing the international importance of the boreal forests, called upon Canada and Russia, the two countries with more than 80 percent of the world's undeveloped forests in the Northern Hemisphere, to protect them and involve indigenous communities in any development decisions. Then the NRDC and Greenpeace Canada announced a campaign to target Kimberly-Clark, the world's largest producer of toilet paper. The groups accuse the company of relying on fiber from ancient forests to make its toilet paper, tissue and paper towels. "North America, home to only 7 percent of the world's population, consumes nearly half of the world's tissue paper products," Casey-Lefkowitz says. Each year, she says, North Americans use 50 pounds of tissue paper per person, and the United States uses about 7.4 million tons of tissue paper. The group is calling upon Kimberly-Clark to include more recycled materials "so that ancient boreal forests need not be cut to be flushed down the toilet." Kimberly-Clark spokesman Dave Dickson says the company has strict policies that emphasize economic, environmental and social sustainability in its harvesting of wood. "Our policy prohibits the use of any wood from virgin rain forests or significant old-growth forests, including Canada's boreal forest. We offer products that use recycled fiber." He acknowledges that some of the products Kimberly-Clark produces are made from pulp that comes from boreal trees. "Yes, we use virgin pulp from the boreal forest in Canada. We do from some areas, yes, but not from ecologically significant old-growth areas." He says pulp is made of leftover sawdust and woodchip waste from the milling process and is used to make products such as Kleenex tissue. Kimberly-Clark has about 55 percent of the facial tissue market in the United States. Tempting Offers Sophia Rabliauskas, a member of the Poplar River First Nation, says elders remind the community that land is more important than money. "Like other aboriginal communities, we struggle with poverty, we struggle with unemployment, we struggle with health issues we've never seen before," she says. "Sometimes, it's tempting. They [companies] will say there is money in it, economic development. But the elders say be careful. Living in poverty, living in high unemployment, it's tempting. But we've seen the damage and destruction to the land in communities just north of here. "Developers rarely talk about the human destruction left behind -- all kinds of diseases, illness, diabetes, children with asthma and respiratory problems." Rabliauskas walks around the tepee, closer to the banks of the lake. "It has happened in the past. Developers came in and destroyed land. It hasn't improved the community at all. I think we have to ask for help. We are a small group of people. Sometimes, it's overwhelming going up against major developers who have money. We will do what we can to protect the land. We will do anything." Ernest C. Bruce, manager of the Poplar River nation and nephew of Victor Bruce, says the band is constantly being hit with proposals for development, tourism, ideas from the south to turn the land into money. "We are afraid of the damage. One community allowed eco-tourism and the Americans came in and didn't respect the land. They hunted the moose and took the heads for trophies and left the bodies. That's against nature," Ernest Bruce says. Other companies, he says, come in and brought with them cigarettes and alcohol and offers of jobs. "Like there was a paper mill company that came in and met with the community and promised employment in exchange for clear-cutting and promised a road. Manitoba Hydro promised employment. We've always said no to them." Even though the community needs jobs. Only 15 percent of the 1,000 people or more in the Poplar River community work. The rest live on fixed income and social insurance. "Some people get excited about the promise for jobs," Bruce says. "But the elders express concern. 'Are we willing to sacrifice for something short-term?' Money is only something you can hold, spend and it's gone. But the land will be here." The Divinity of the Wild Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a senior attorney with the NRDC, has come to this camp to help save the boreal. "The wilderness connects us with generations," he says. "We experience the divine most forcefully when we are in the wilderness. All the Koran's prophets were shepherds who came out of the deserts. The central epiphany in the tradition of mankind has occurred in the wilderness. Mohammed wrestled the camel. Moses had to go to the wilderness to get the Commandments. Christ had to go into the wilderness to discover divinity. In every religious tradition, they all instruct us to study nature, to learn God's message." The fire in the middle of the camp is burning. The elders are listening. The sage is simmering. "When we destroy the last areas of wilderness, we cut ourselves off from the source of identity," says Kennedy. "When we destroy those things, it is the equivalent of tearing the last pages out of the Bible. We better hold some places in reserve to show our children." J.P. Gladu, an aboriginal outreach coordinator for the Canadian Boreal Initiative, is on this trip, too. He is explaining that last year a coalition of energy and forest companies joined First Nation tribes and environmental groups in an agreement to preserve at least 50 percent of the boreal. The other half would be developed in an environmentally sustainable method, carefully. "Big corporations are pretty powerful. The current model is to get bigger," Gladu says. "But economically, the world needs resources. Unless people's minds shift, it won't stop. People consume. People consume. Until we change that, I don't think it will stop. Gladu says that for some, the union of environmentalists, First Nation and corporations is dangerous. "It's like the story of the scorpion and the fox. The scorpion and fox need each other to get to the other side of the river," Gladu says. "The fox says, 'I'm not going to give you a ride. You will sting me.' "The scorpion says, 'Why would I sting you? We will both drown.' "The fox gives him a ride and halfway across, the scorpion stings the fox. "The fox says, 'Why did you do that?' "The scorpion says, 'It's in my nature.' " Ernest C. Bruce is standing by the lake. The water is lapping. The trees are swaying. Night is coming. The hill over there, Bruce is saying, is Thunder Mountain. "They say that is where the thunderbird lives. When in the past people traveled through the land, they traveled silently. If they woke the Thunderbird, there would be thunderstorms and lightning." Somewhere out there, a night bird cries. ? 2004 The Washington Post Company -- Macdonald Stainsby http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green In the contradiction lies the hope --Bertholt Brecht. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:36:14 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:36:14 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] "Revolutionary Crunk Muzik" 3 track cd re-issued and more... Message-ID: Peace all, 1. The "Revolutionary Crunk Muzik" 3 track cd has been re-issued. Holla if you want a copy (206-600-1307; dredimusic at yahoo.com). Or check us out live and get your copy there. Contributors on this cd include DJ Roc'phella and Felicia V. Loud. Don't sleep...! Moorpheus (aka Merciful) of dRED. i and Jace of Silent Lambs Project are featured in on DJ Sean Malik's new mix cd in rare form; dropping freestyles over some of the hottest club joints, live from Des Amis in Seattle. Email him at holla at seanmalik.com Once again, don't sleep...! 2. We've been confirmed to appear on Hip-Hop 101 on December 30th. Show starts at 10pm on SCAN-TV ch. 29/77. We are told this will be a two-hour special broadcast done live (as always), featuring many of Seattle's top artists. 3. We were asked by New Hope Missionary Baptist Church to let folks know that they are having a holiday party on 12/22 (wednesday) at 7pm. They were also kind enough to invite us (and we accepted) to come and do an accapella set, along with other performers (TBA). Also, they asking for donations of unwrapped toys to give away to needy families both during and after the event. Please call 206.323.4212 and ask for Annette if you would like to do your part and add-on. New Hope Missionary Baptist Church is located at 124 21st Ave.(Seattle). Greg Gregory C. Lewis, Certified Personal Trainer and Clinical Exercise Specialist(ACE). Certified Instructor; Kenzen Karate. 206-956-4043. How is YOUR nutrition? Find out now: http://147.208.9.133/Default.asp Take the Self-Protection Quiz (For Women): http://www.aware.org/quizzes/quizindex.shtml -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:35:22 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:35:22 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Prayer wheel for our soldiers Message-ID: Please keep this going, not for me but for those that count for our freedom. Thanks. Prayer wheel for our Military...please don't break it Please send this on after a short prayer. Prayer wheel for our soldiers...please don't break it Prayer Wheel "Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen." Prayer Wheel: When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our troops around the world. There is nothing attached.... This can be very powerful.... Just send this to all the people in your address book. Do not stop the wheel, please.... Of all the gifts you could give a US Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine &others deployed in harm's way, Prayer is the very best one. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 24706 bytes Desc: not available URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:42:39 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:42:39 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Uncle Sam Wants Your Kids - Now! Message-ID: 12-06-2004 Hack's Target Uncle Sam Wants Your Kids - Now! By David H. Hackworth We'll soon have 150,000 U.S. troops stuck in the ever-expanding Iraqi quagmire, a number that will probably grow even larger before Iraq holds elections presently scheduled for the end of January '05. Maintaining such a force is a logistical and personnel nightmare for every grunt in Iraq. And according to several Pentagon number crunchers, it's also driving the top brass bonkers. Meanwhile the insurgents continue cutting our supply lines and whacking our fighting platoons and supporters, who attrit daily as soldiers and Marines fall to enemy shots, sickness or accidents. Empty platoons lose fights, so these casualties have to be replaced ASAP. Since this tragic war kicked off in March 2003, the United States has evacuated an estimated 50,000 KIA, WIA and non-battle casualties from Iraq back to the States - leaving 50,000 slots that have had to be filled. The job of finding fresh bodies to keep our units topped off falls mainly to the Army Recruiting Command. But the "making-quota" jazz put out by the Recruiting Command and the Pentagon to hype their billion-dollar recruiting effort, with its huge TV expenditure and big expansion of recruiters during the past year, is pure unadulterated spin. Not that this is anything new. The Command has a sorry reputation for using smoke and mirrors to cover up poor performance. "Hack, here's a snapshot of how little of our 1st Quarter mission has been achieved," says an Army recruiter. "Look at it from a perspective of a business releasing quarterly earnings information. To keep unit manning levels up out in the field, especially in Iraq, there's no question our recruiting mission is in serious trouble." "These are totals for the 41 USAREC (Recruiting Command) Battalions, so these stats represent the USAREC mission accomplishment: Regular Army Volume (all RA contracts): Mission: 25,322 Achieved: 12,703 (50.17 percent) Army Reserve Volume: Mission: 7,373 Achieved: 3,206 (43.48 percent)." The Army National Guard is faring no better. A Guard retention NCO says: "The word is out on the streets of Washington, D.C. 'Do not join the Guard.' I see these words echoing right across the U.S.A." By the end of this recruiting year, the Regular Army, Reserves and Guard could fall short more than 50 percent of its projected requirement, or about 60,000 new soldiers. And according to many recruiters, quality recruits are giving way to mental midgets who have a hard time telling their left foot from their right. Shades of our last years in Vietnam. "The bottom line is that Recruiting Command is in trouble," says another recruiter with almost 30 years of service. "The Army has re-instituted 'stop loss,' which is basically a backdoor draft. They're stopping people from retiring or completing their enlistment and leaving the Army. They do this fairly often, mostly in August and September, depending upon how far behind they believe they'll be at the end of September. "I believe the Army will have to drastically change what they offer to enlistees to overcome what's happening in Iraq. The war is ugly, and not many kids want to enlist to be blown up." Moms and dads are outraged about desperate Army recruiters on a relentless campaign to sign up their teenagers. High-school kids are actually running away from recruiters like they were George Romero's living dead. "Recruiters have called my son a minimum of 20 times in the two years since he finished high school," a dad reports. "The phone calls usually come in clusters. I answered five calls in a two- or three-week span. Each time a recruiter calls, he receives the same polite, respectful response from me or my son ... no interest, and please take the name off the list. When asked why the name hasn't been removed, excuses are made. While recruiters are brief with me, when my son is on the phone, the sales tactics are clever, prolonged and very high-pressure." "I took the latest recruiting call. This time I also called the supervisor at the local Army recruiting office, who's promised to take his name off the list. She made excuses for the repeated calls despite the fact that five calls were on her watch." Unless a miracle happens and the new Iraqi security force decides to stop running and start fighting, we'll be in Iraq for a long time. Most likely with a draftee force. -- Eilhys England contributed to this column. Col. David H. Hackworth (USA Ret.) is SFTT.org co-founder and Senior Military Columnist for DefenseWatch magazine. For information on his many books, go to his home page at Hackworth.com, where you can sign in for his free weekly Defending America. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. His newest book is "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts." ? 2004 David H. Hackworth. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback at yahoo.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:45:13 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:45:13 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Update Message-ID: Greetings 1 - I now have a blog (definition: To write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog) site at: http://abutamam.blogspot.com (for my English-speaking friends, Abu Tamam means the father of Tamam, who is my son). As you may have noticed over the past few months, I have been getting into the practice of composing an email citing two or three news articles that I feel are related in content, add my pertinent short comment on them and attach a poignant drawing in the hope that I may deliver a 'coherent' message reflecting my feelings on the subject matter concerning current events in Iraq. These composed emails (in the future and from the recent past, in English and a few in Arabic) will go on the blog and become available, humbly, as a compendium for reference, study and, hopefully, comment. I thank Riverbend and R Dion for piquing my interest is setting this blog up. 2 - For my Arabic-speaking friends, the Arabic translation of my book, 'Iraq's Nuclear Mirage' is now in print . I have updated its content to cover related events from September 2003, when it was first released in English, through to September 2004. It may be obtained through the Internet from the book's site at: http://www.iraqsnuclearmirage.com which has been updated, both in Arabic and in English. All the best Imad Khadduri PS: I apologize if you have received more than one email of this. I got lost in my Address Book. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:47:01 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:47:01 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Holiday Gift Ideas to Support SFT Message-ID: Holiday Gift Ideas from SFT SFT Holiday Gift Ideas ATTENTION HOLIDAY SHOPPERS! The mad holiday scramble is on, and we have some great gift ideas that will give something extra. Please visit SFT's online store to find great items that your friends and loved ones will enjoy-- while making a difference for Tibet. Check out the In Tibet 2005 wall calendar, full of beautiful color photos from inside Tibet by SFT's favorite photographer, Sonam Zoksang. An SFT store exclusive, Jamyang Norbu's new book about the economic reality of China's occupation of Tibet Buying the Dragon's Teeth will inspire and inform... and give you lots to debate with the family over the holidays. This limited edition poster series [seven 24" x 36" posters in the set!] on the theme of 'A Better Tomorrow' by acclaimed contemporary artists JK5, David Ellis, Kenji Hirata, UPSO, Mike Houston, and South will make a unique and creative gift. Donated by the artists, all proceeds benefit SFT. "Tibet Will Be Free" women's hooded pullover will ward off the chill this winter while making a bold statement. Check out the men's long-sleeve t-shirt and the other great new styles too. Give that special someone something special to carry their gifts home in, the new "I Heart Tibet" tote bag... with a message of support for the important work of SFT. Note: we can only guarantee delivery in time for Christmas if we express-ship your items (please call 212.358.0071 for details). However, if you order by December 17th, we will make sure your order gets into the mail (USPS standard) by the next day (12/18). The support and encouragement of our members and friends make all of our work possible. Thank you! -all the SFT elves -------------------------------------------------------------- Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this. Tell-a-friend! If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Students for a Free Tibet's Action Center. This message was sent to deano700 at msn.com. Visit your subscription management page to modify your email communication preferences or update your personal profile. To stop ALL email from Students for a Free Tibet's Action Center, click to remove yourself from our lists (or reply via email with "remove" in the subject line). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:48:31 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:48:31 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Whitewashing torture? Message-ID: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/08/coverup/ Whitewashing torture? A veteran sergeant who told his commanding officers that he witnessed his colleagues torturing Iraqi detainees was strapped to a gurney and flown out of Iraq -- even though there was nothing wrong with him. - - - - - - - - - - - - By David DeBatto Dec. 8, 2004 | On June 15, 2003, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford, a counterintelligence agent in the California National Guard's 223rd Military Intelligence (M.I.) Battalion stationed in Samarra, Iraq, told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at his base, and requested a formal investigation. Thirty-six hours later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical personnel to lie down on a gurney, was then strapped down, loaded onto a military plane and medevac'd to a military medical center outside the country. Although no "medevac" order appears to have been written, in violation of Army policy, Ford was clearly shipped out because of a diagnosis that he was suffering from combat stress. After Ford raised the torture allegations, Artiga immediately said Ford was "delusional" and ordered a psychiatric examination, according to Ford. But that examination, carried out by an Army psychiatrist, diagnosed him as "completely normal." A witness, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Marciello, claims that Artiga became enraged when he read the initial medical report finding nothing wrong with Ford and intimidated the psychiatrist into changing it. According to Marciello, Artiga angrily told the psychiatrist that it was a "C.I. [counterintelligence] or M.I. matter" and insisted that she had to change her report and get Ford out of Iraq. Documents show that all subsequent examinations of Ford by Army mental-health professionals, over many months, confirmed his initial diagnosis as normal. An officer at the California Office of the Adjutant General in Sacramento, Calif., Sgt. Maj. Patrick Hammond, has known Ford for over 15 years during their service in the California National Guard. Hammond said, "I have never had any reason to question his honesty and I don't do so now." This reporter served in the military with Ford in Iraq for seven months and can also attest that he is sane and level-headed. Ford, who has since left the military, claims that his superiors shipped him out of the country to prevent him from exposing the abusive behavior. "They were determined to protect their own asses no matter who they had to take down," he says. Col. C. Tsai, a military doctor who examined Ford in Germany and found nothing wrong with him, told a film crew for Spiegel Television that he was "not surprised" at Ford's diagnosis. Tsai told Spiegel that he had treated "three or four" other U.S. soldiers from Iraq that were also sent to Landstuhl for psychological evaluations or "combat stress counseling" after they reported incidents of detainee abuse or other wrongdoing by American soldiers. Artiga and other higher-ups in the 223rd M.I. Battalion deny Ford's charges. But in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, federal agencies including the Department of Defense, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID), and the FBI are finally looking into them. The Department of the Army's Office of the Inspector General has launched an investigation, according to Ford and his attorney, Kevin Healy, who have been contacted by investigators. If Ford's allegations are proven, the Army would be faced with evidence that its prisoner abuse problem is even more widespread than previously acknowledged -- and that some of its own officers not only turned a blind eye to abuses but actively participated in covering them up. The 223rd M.I. Battalion was one of the first divisions to enter Iraq after the U.S. "Shock and Awe" aerial bombardment ended, in mid-April 2003. (I also served in that unit in-country from April through October 2003. I met Ford in February 2003, at Fort Bragg, N.C., and continued to stay in contact with him until he was shipped out of the country. I have also since left the military.) The battalion's mission was to collect counterintelligence. Its agents, highly trained soldiers responsible for force protection and for investigating national security crimes committed against the Army, were divided into small units called Tactical Human Intelligence Teams, or THTs. Every day, these teams went out from their forward operating bases in Iraq and interacted with the local people in an effort to gather critical intelligence on such matters as the location of conventional and unconventional weapons and the whereabouts of the fugitives depicted on the Pentagon's 55-most-wanted playing cards. It was arguably one of the most sensitive and important jobs in the entire Iraqi theater of operations. As the team sergeant of his THT, Ford was second in command of his four-person team and responsible for training, discipline, logistics and supervision of day-to-day operations. He was also the team's designated combat life saver, or medic. Ford spent his first weeks in Iraq at Balad Air Base, also known as Camp Anaconda, about 50 kilometers north of Baghdad along the Tigris. In early May, he was assigned to a THT that was headed for Samarra, another 20 kilometers to the northeast. An ancient trading center that dates to the Mesopotamian era, Samarra was known as a hotbed of Sunni Arab loyalists, ex-Baath Party officials, and Islamist extremists. The two-story police station the Army occupied was located in the center of town, closely surrounded by taller buildings, giving anyone who cared to fire on the Americans an excellent field in which to do so. And fire they did. Almost every night, Ford and his teammates would be forced to dive from their bunks for cover as mortar rounds rocked the compound. The concussions shook the foundation and broke whatever glass windows remained. Fortunately, the Iraqi mortar crews proved wildly inaccurate, and no Americans were killed, but several were wounded and the attacks never let up. There was immense pressure on the THT to find out who was behind the attacks and to supply the information to the "gunslingers" of the 4th Infantry Division. It was in that environment that Ford says he saw the incidents that led to the end of his long military career. Next page | "Nope, that never happened. You're delusional" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:49:03 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:49:03 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Have you experienced crime in South Africa? Message-ID: http://www.southafricathetruth.netfirms.com/crimeexperience.htm Have you experienced crime in South Africa? BBC News "Talking Point" April 16, 2002 Send your experiences to us South Africa is the most dangerous country in the world, which is not at war. Fifteen thousand people were murdered between January and September last year. Cracking the problem of crime remains the single biggest challenge facing South Africa's Government. This year R31.8 billion ($3.5 billion) was budgeted to pay for the fight against crime, 11% of total government spending. Have you experienced crime in South Africa? What can the government, and society at large, do? And following the acquittal of Dr Wouter Basson, the man who headed South Africa's apartheid-era germ warfare programme, how much faith do you have in South Africa's courts? Read a selection of comments below. I lived in South Africa for 21 years and became a South African citizen, I also have 2 South African children. Having lost 4 of my good friends in the period of one year in 2000 all being murdered in cold blood, I decided as beautiful as the country is I could not live there any more. South Africa is a fantastic country getting destroyed by its own people, while the government watches not knowing how to fix the problem and with no-one to turn to for help. The rest of the world set the ANC free, now it watches from afar as South Africa self destructs. Mark, England The crime in South Africa seems to be an ever increasing problem for both residents and visitors to the nation. Recently I was robbed at gunpoint, my car stolen along with all my possessions and even my shoes. I have a number of Zambian friends who are at university there, one of whom was recently stabbed and attacked for money on the university premises. I think that South Africa faces a challenging time ahead. Ryan van der Merwe, Zambia I am a Scot who lived and worked in SA during the eighties. I still have a son, daughter and two grandchildren in Jo?burg. My brother-in-law was shot at a few years ago and his wife was shot in the hand during a post office robbery four years ago. The father of a boy whose twenty first birthday celebration I attended, was shot dead last year and the ex-husband of a friend brutally murdered in Maritzburg four years ago. My daughter witnessed an armed robbery in the complex where she lived. My wife, who was born in Durban, vows that she will never settle back in SA as she worries for the safety of our youngest daughter. The instances of crimes against relatives and friends are almost endless. Also on the mine where I worked, there were several "muti" killings and tribal tensions were always very close to the surface of mine politics. Surely no-one person can be so unlucky. What also worries me is the near desperate attempts to award the football world cup to SA in 2010. Believe me, it will be open season on unsuspecting fans from all over the world. The whole prospect of awarding the tournament to SA makes my flesh creep. Concerned, Scotland I was carjacked two years ago in Johannesburg while waiting on red light. I managed to escape... the attacker smashed my left widow with the brick and tried to get me out of the car. The police told me afterwards that should he have had a gun I would be dead. Jurek, UK/Poland I live in Washington State (the west coast for those of you who don't know). Here any person without a felony criminal record can get a permit to carry a concealed handgun, and 5% of the population has them (excluding police, who do not need these permits) The rate of violent crime here is vastly lower than in Europe, where criminals know their victims are disarmed and helpless. Makes you think, doesn't it? Robert Blakely, USA I left SA in the mid 80's because there was no way I was going to do military service for the Nationalist Government. Since then, most of the people I knew back then in South Africa have left. My sister and her husband left after my sister, who was working in Johannesburg just got tired of having to take a gun to work. On the other hand, a good friend of mine still lives right in the middle of Johannesburg and neither been burgled nor mugged, but he's not rich so he doesn't make a good target. I really hope that things do improve in South Africa, the people deserve it. Theo Stauffer, Switzerland, Ex-SA I am currently studying for an MSc here and have been mugged twice at knifepoint (in Durban). I obviously am not happy about the violent crime, but I can understand why it happens. The end of apartheid was meant to herald a new era of equality; sadly this is not the case. Jonathan Harris, South Africa (Wales) My friend's girlfriend is from Jo'burg. She says that after dusk, women are allowed to drive through red lights to avoid being hijacked or worse! Her family (who are white), are saving to leave for either England, Australia, or NZ, and who can blame them. SA is going into complete self-destruct and she's not going to hang around for it to happen. No amount of money could make me visit SA. Andrew Boxall, England, UK The crime figures are not exaggerated - for, Johannesburg residents in particular, they are a reality to be faced daily. As many have pointed out, we lived with burglar bars, remote controlled gates (most hijackings take place on the driveway) guard dogs, armed response and electric fences on top of 6 foot high walls. It is an unnatural way of living and we moved after seven close friends were all hijack victims. One had her two young children in the vehicle when it was taken, and it was only her heroism which saved them. Another close family member was shot six times after he was out of his vehicle and he was unarmed. The vehicle was later found abandoned. Most South Africans are shocked by the senseless violence which accompanies burglaries, hijackings or theft in SA. It is wrong to use Apartheid as an excuse, as it should be condemned outright by any civilised society rather than excused because of the past. The savagery which is used on victims cannot be excused by any past event nor should it be tolerated by civilised society. Crime is often meaningless and it is neither because of Apartheid nor poverty - it is indicative of a society / system which are not tough enough on protecting all citizens. Dee, South African in the UK I've never experienced it, but indeed I'm afraid of any one. What I told myself is not to trust anyone: female/male or young /old, danger is always there. Tich, South Africa As a 30 year old born in SA spending most of my life here, I have stab wounds in my back, a few times I've had a gun shoved in my face, my car and house broken several times and I purchased another 'security' product this week. Enough said. Peter Murgatroyd, Cape Town, South Africa. I have lived in South Africa all my life and have been a victim of a vicious mugging, robbed goodness knows how many times, witnessed two separate armed robberies that went wrong, was within metres of a bomb blast in JHB and lost a dear cousin who was murdered? need I say, the murderer got off because the police "lost" the evidence - I can go on and on, but one thing is blatantly obvious, there will have to be zero tolerance of crime before anybody will put their confidence in South Africa to return or expect foreign investment to flow back into the country. When there is more economic confidence in South Africa there will be less unemployment and less crime and maybe the Rand will even strengthen! I wonder if the SA government has figured this out yet? No South African would leave their country and live abroad unless they desperately feared for their lives in South Africa! Debbie Smith, London UK Having lived in Southern Africa for 22 years, I made the decision to leave in '98. It is not an easy thing to do. My entire family still lives there. My brother tells me of how he chased a burglar down the road with his '45 Revolver. Murder and rape are constantly mentioned by everyone I know. Many of my friends have been hi-jacked (one for an old Volkswagen Beetle!) It seems that there is no regard for human life. All that I can say about this to critics of people like me who leave, is that I can now sleep with my windows open. I do not live behind a 8 foot wall with razor wire and an electric fence. My front door opens right onto a street in downtown Montreal. There is no security gate. I park my car in the street. In my entire time in Canada, I have heard of only two cars that were stolen. There was no loss of life, something that could easily accompany that act in South Africa. People that say it is not "that" bad in South Africa have either never lived there, or have never left to find out how people live in the rest of the world. That is ignorance. Apartheid is partly to blame for this mess, but the government cannot continue to use that as a scapegoat. Educate the people. It is the single best thing that they could do. Barry, Canada I think every person in this country has been affected by crime in one way or another. Just in my immediate family there has been an attempted murder - my brother stabbed in his own house 14 times. All of us have had our cars broken into, one brother has had three vehicles stolen, all four of us have had our houses robbed, I have had a revolver pointed in my face in an attempted hijacking and all this is not taking into account the petty crimes. The most frightening factor is you think it is normal now to live with burglar bars, lock yourself into your house, have alarm systems, sleep with the alarm on at night, ensure that there are panic buttons throughout your house, 24 hour armed private security - that is just for your personal safety. The other hidden crime is the rampant corruption and ongoing fraud within the government departments and to a lesser degree in business, I am an auditor who specialises in fraud within the government - I am guaranteed of a job until retirement. That's if I am not murdered and raped before I reach retirement age. Angela, South Africa Having worked and have been robbed in Johannesburg, South Africa it is clear that there needs to be a multi-pronged approach and maybe crime will decrease: - remove the vast number of illegal weapons by amnesties, rewards, cash for arms etc. - education of the youth in previously disadvantaged areas. A protracted campaign on prevention might bring back big business into downtown Johannesburg Chrysos, USA They have tried it... but it didn`t work! -Editor Until violence happens to you, it is easy to ignore or rationalise how to avoid it. After our house was invaded, at 2 am, we saw things quite differently and felt lucky to have escaped the grizzly violence that usually goes with such events in households. The violence appears to be indiscriminate and IS brutal, affecting many more black victims than others. Judging by the noise our dog caused, the invaders were ejected in a big hurry. Perhaps they weren't armed well enough. During the subsequent three hour police "investigation", 90% of the time was spent in querying us on how best the officers could move to Canada! Investigating the crime was apparently just a waste of time! Living within our resulting 12,000 volt fence was no life either. Unless part of a plot to overthrow the country, the violence is out of control and helping to throttle the country's bright future. Occurrences, to you or to others just sap any enthusiasm you may have. I have no solutions, but only consolidated public action could do it and I doubt if that's now possible. Shortly before our departure, there was a major local crackdown on hijackers, with armed choppers and spotter planes often at tree-top level over our house. It seemed to have some effect then, but didn't last. Africa has ways around such retaliations. Sadly disappointed, Canada As a travel agent in New Zealand, I regularly deal with people who want to go to South Africa on holiday (usually rugby fans). I don't want to damage the SA tourism industry, nor do I want to put people off travelling (I do want their money after all), but I feel morally obliged to tell potential visitors stories such as the ones posted on this site, so that when they get there, they are not shocked by the barbed wire and sounds of gunfire. Andrew, New Zealand It proves that if you treat a human being like an animal, then that is how they will behave. Every country that has thrown off the shackles of totalitarianism has had to deal with a soaring crime rate for a time. The crime rate in the former Soviet Union is a prime example. I'm certain that once the South African people recover their dignity, the crime rate will drop. Tom Byrne, USA Unequivocally yes! South Africa's crime is appalling - criminals rule the streets in broad daylight. I'm black and feel ashamed that my country is a gangsters paradise. Criminals have more rights than law abiding citizens. Court documents go missing and the case gets dismissed and the criminals are back on the streets. I say we need zero tolerance policy in South Africa!How many more lives should we lose before criminals are put behind bars? Maxwell, Asia As a former resident of South Africa, I can honestly say that the only reason I left the country was because I feared for the life of my son, my husband and myself. My family were first victims of crime when I was in my teens, but it was petty, taking place when we weren't home. The next time we were victims, we were also out, one evening, but our home was like a fortress - bars on every window (even the ones that didn't open!), security gates on the doors, a dog. Yet they still managed to break in - coming in through the roof! It was my first real experience of crime, losing sentimental items, of no value to anyone but me. But it scared me, and it made me realise that there were people out there who didn't care - they just wanted what they could get their hands on. The next incident took place a couple of years later. A neighbour came home one evening, disturbing a robbery in her home. She turned around, and walked out, not wanting confrontation. She was chased, and shot in the back, trying to climb over a 6ft fence that had barbed fencing on top. I will never forget the sound of her groaning, asking for help. I can still hear it now. Shortly after that my husband lost a dear friend, who was murdered in his own bed, the contents of his home were put into his car, and the murderer drove away, leaving behind a devastated family. The night he died his only daughter gave birth to his first grandchild. It breaks my heart to think about that moment. Not six months later, we were the victims once again. This time we were robbed in broad daylight. We had all the usual - dogs, bars on the windows, bars on the doors, six foot fencing with security gates. And it still didn't stop them. We were cleaned out, and that was the moment that we decided to quit South Africa. We gave ourselves a year to save up the money, and one year later we left. Tina Hattingh, United Kingdom My company does business with a distributor located near Johannesburg. They trade from an industrial unit, surrounded by a high security fence, with constant armed security on-site. Last year, a large truck drove off the nearby highway, straight through the fence, and through the side wall of the unit. Around 10 armed men (both black and white) got out, shot two staff members (fortunately not fatally) and then calmly loaded the truck, backed out of the unit, and drove back onto the highway. As they left, they came under fire from the security guards. One of the robbers was hit and killed, and was thrown out of the back of the truck as it drove away. The whole thing sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie, but apparently it wasn't even lead story on the local news that night! John, England As a citizen of Johannesburg, I have encountered crime in various ways. I have been hijacked by five armed robbers, I have chased burglars out of my yard, and I have turned my house into a veritable fortress, with burglar-proof bars on the windows, security doors, all round electric fencing, and an alarm system linked to a 24hr armed response company. Through all this, I have found the police to be overworked, stressed, and disheartened because of what they see as "the system failing them." Very few criminals ever get to see the inside of a court room, and the few that do are invariably let out on bail. Every time. Besides this, the police are being governed by ever stricter laws regarding the use of their firearms, in which the policeman is obliged to wait until fired at, before any return shots can be fired. As such, policeman in South Africa are utterly demoralised and without hope. We have one of the world's highest police suicide rates, and it's not surprising why. How can anybody expect these men to continue doing the best they can, day after day, undergoing the same stresses as soldiers in wartime, but for much longer, and there's no indication that they're winning this war. Simply put, the government of South Africa has failed its people. The police are losing faith in the very cause they're meant to fight for, and the public does not have any respect or trust for the SAPS anymore. Darren Olivier, South Africa I strongly disagree with the statement that "South Africa is the most dangerous country in the world which is not at war". It is true that there are certain parts of the country with incidents of crime like anywhere in the world for example, down town Johannesburg and in the townships. South Africa has made very good progress in reconciling her people both black and white from the vestitutes of apartheid. What seemS to puzzle me is the alarmist statistics and media hype about South African Aids, crime, rape, currency fluctuations etcetera. Africans need to aggressively market their achievements by building on the good work of Nelson Mandela, Nyerere, Senghor and Metsire. Matthias Kulubya, London,U.K Did you mention you live in the UK? -Editor How can someone living in London comment on the crime in south Africa as one of the previous gentlemen has? We live here and see and experience what is happening! I personally know many who have been hijacked, shot at, etc. I have had a high-jacking right outside of my studio. I have had a car stolen. I have had my caravan broken into - need I go on? Our present Government continues to blame apartheid long after it ahs been dismantled, so as to cover up their own incompetence in running the country. I have had many Blacks tell me that they were better off in all respects under the old regime. 20 years back we never had a country full of squatter camps and such a high unemployment rate. We could walk the streets in comparative safety, but not now! It is about time our Government wakes up and starts to do something positive and not worry about the problems in other countries. Dennis Clark, South Africa Have you experienced crime in SA? Nobody living in SA has not! Some even believe it is normal. E.G., South Africa On my car alone, over the course of the last five or six years: three radios stolen (with or without removable face-plates), four smashed windows, one door-lock cut out, before it was finally stolen a year ago. With a steering-wheel lock on it. My grandfather has been mugged twice and hijacked once. Simply put, more police, heavier sentences, and anything that can combat the criminal culture that has grown up in the country. Until that happens, I'm staying well away. Matthew Roberts, U.K. A clear demonstration of how South Africa is now much, much better than it ever was under the apartheid government. No, it isn't their fault. Sometime or other, Thabo Mbeki and Nelson Mandela will have to accept that this isn't the fault of the apartheid administration. Graeme Phillips, UK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:49:28 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:49:28 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Israeli soldiers admit killing Palestinian boy for fun Message-ID: Palestine Monitor. Israeli soldiers admit killing Palestinian boy for fun Aljazeera December 8, 2004 Israeli soldiers serving at the Gaza Strip admitted that they had killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, "for sport." The incident took place in March when a group of Israeli soldiers were on a hike outside the town of Khan Younis, the Yedeot Ahranot reported on Tuesday. The Israeli newspaper said that a group of Giv'ati brigade soldiers shot dead Khalid Suleiman Mahdi, 15, who was assisting his father in their farm. Suleiman Mahdi, Khalid's father, told the paper that the killing was "just for the sake of it." "Seven bullets pierced my son's head, so you can't talk here about a mistake or random gunfire. This was an act of direct and clear sharp shooting". "The area was is wide open and contains nothing special. The only thing unusual was the shooting at us, which killed my son, " Suleiman said. Khalid, his two brothers and their father, were working in the family's farm when the Israeli soldiers opened fire at them. The Yedeot Ahranot interviewed the Israeli soldiers involved in the crime. "There were no operational purposes" for the shooting, admitted the soldiers, for neither the boy or his family posed any threat whatsoever. An Israeli army spokesman said the army investigated March incident, but admitted that no arrests were made. The spokesman refused to reveal why the Israeli soldiers were not arrested, let alone prosecuted. However, Suleiman Mahdi, a farm worker, said he didn't consider suing his son's murderers. "I only hope the Israeli army takes care such a thing doesn't occur once again. There are lots of children here who work with their parents and I hope Khalid will be the last casualty." Palestinians and human rights groups have often accused the Israeli military of firing randomly at Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In October, Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian a 13-year- old schoolgirl, Iman al-Hams, 20 times while she was walking past an Israeli military checkpoint on her way to school in Rafah, a refugee camp on Gaza's border with Egypt. An Israeli journalist had previously denounced the deliberate killing of hundreds of Palestinian children by Israeli forces, saying that these killings make the Israeli military a terrorist army. Gideon Levy often writes about the crimes and violations of the Israeli army in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He also said that the explanations and justifications made by the Israeli military and Foreign Ministry were far from convincing. "The plain fact, which must be stated clearly, is that the blood of hundreds of Palestinian children is on our hands. No explanation by the army spokesman's office or by the military correspondents about the dangers posed to soldiers by the children and no dubious excuse by the public relations people in the foreign ministry about how Palestinian are making use of children will change that fact. "An army that kills so many children is an army with no restraints, an army that has lost its moral code." Levy also criticized the Israeli claims that Palestinian children are often killed during clashes with Palestinian resistance fighters. He said that most of the children were killed either inside or in front of their own homes. "Mahammad al Araj was eating a sandwich in front of his house when a soldier shot him to death at fairly close range.He was six at the time of his death..Kristin Sa'ad was in her parents' care, on the way home from a family visit, when soldiers sprayed the care with bullets.She was 12 at the time of her death." Results of B'Tselem Investigation: Serious Suspicion that IDF Executed an Unarmed and Injured Palestinian Btselem December 6, 2004 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:50:25 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:50:25 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: My Newsletter Message-ID: Win a FREE Pentium 4 Computer! Click here! Visit the Infowars / Prisonplanet network of websites today! December 10, 2004Because there's a war on for your mind! Latest News - Pentagon wants to build permanent prison at Guantanamo The Pentagon has proposed building a permanent prison at the US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, and the army is working on creating a permanent unit of troops to watch over detainees, a base spokesman told AFP. Full story online at infowars.net Visit Prison Planet.tv - your portal for daily audio, video and text reports Further Headlines from Infowars / Prisonplanet Visit the sites for the full articles: a.. Fury over 'gay Jesus' production b.. Bush: Taxes won't save Social Security c.. School defends slavery booklet d.. Alex Jones' Weekly Report December 7 2004 e.. Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah f.. Iranians Unite Behind Nation's Nuclear Plans g.. Russia could hit terror bases anywhere in the world: Ivanov h.. ??oYour Papers Please??? i.. TWISTED LOGIC: Eavesdropping against law even for parent, court says j.. Nobel Peace Winner Retracts "man made AIDS" comments k.. Prozac is risky for children too l.. Cellphone sniffs out dirty bombs m.. Let's Start A War Advertise with us! Infowars.net gets millions of hits a month. If you have something you want to advertise, please contact us. rates are very low. For more information Click Here Infowars Services Dial up service DSL service Webhosting PropagandaMatrix.com New Anti NWO t-shirts, Playing cards, bumper stickers and more in the re-designed Propaganda Matrix online shop. Now accepting payments via Worldpay and Paypal. We thank you for supporting our activities and helping us grow. http://www.infowars.net Free Newsletter Provided by Bravenet.com - Get one for Free ? Unsubscribe from this newsletter -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: globe_header.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 37490 bytes Desc: not available URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:46:23 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:46:23 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Israel lobby sends FBI to investigate mysterious death. Message-ID: FYI http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Number=293170325 Israeli Agent Found Dead In Washington, DC Report; Posted on: 2004-12-08 02:19:53 Israel lobby sends FBI to investigate mysterious death. Jason Korsower, 29, died in his sleep in his Washington apartment on Friday, November 26th. The former yeshiva student served in the Israeli army and worked for a US-based Mossad front-group. The JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) described him as "an expert on Muslim extremism who worked at a think tank researching terrorism." An FBI agent in Atlanta, Steve Lazarus, refused to confirm or deny an investigation, citing FBI policy. However, the agency was at least aware of the case. An FBI spokeswoman in DC, Debra Weierman, referred JTA to the FBI's Atlanta bureau, even though JTA had not mentioned that Atlanta was Korsower's hometown in its request for information. JTA sources made clear that the FBI is asking questions, and without relating specifically to Korsower's death, Lazarus said that agents would only ask questions about a death if a full investigation were underway. Officials at the shadowy "Investigative Project," where Korsower worked, also would not comment. The Investigative Project is run by Steve Emerson (pictured). The Jerusalem Post (9/17/94) has noted that Emerson has "close ties to Israeli intelligence." According to its Web site >Web site , the Investigative Project "has for years investigated the operations, funding, activities and front groups of Islamic terrorist and extremist groups in the United States and around the world." "Emerson is carrying the ball for Likud," said investigative journalist Robert Parry, referring to Israel's right-wing ruling party. And Victor Ostrovsky, who defected from Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and has written books disclosing its secrets, calls Emerson "the horn" -- because he trumpets Mossad claims. Vince Cannistraro, an ABC consultant and a retired CIA counterterrorism official, said of Emerson's closest associates -- Steve Pomerantz, Oliver Revell and Yigal Carmon: "They're Israeli-funded. How do I know that? Because they tried to recruit me." Senior Editor John Sugg of Florida's Weekly Planet newspaper wrote: "Yigal Carmon is a ranking member of Israel's intelligence and military establishment, is considered to the right of even the current Likud government. As The Nation has reported (and never disputed by Emerson), Carmon was part of the 'gang of three' that spent much time lobbying Congress to derail the Middle East peace process -- and Carmon even stayed at Emerson's home on his visits to the United States. (The Nation, August 28/September 4, 1995 and May 15, 1995) Emerson gained prominence in the early '90s. He published books, wrote articles, produced a documentary, won awards and was frequently quoted. The media, Capitol Hill and scholars paid attention. As Emerson's fame mounted, so did criticism. A New York Times review (5/19/91) of his 1991 book Terrorist chided that it was "marred by factual errors -- and by a pervasive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias." His 1994 PBS video, Jihad in America (11/94), was faulted for misrepresentations -- veteran reporter Robert Friedman (The Nation, 5/15/95) accused Emerson of "creating mass hysteria against American Arabs." Emerson was wrong when he initially pointed to Yugoslavians as suspects in the World Trade Center bombing (CNN, 3/2/93). But Emerson's most notorious gaffe was his claim that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing showed "a Middle Eastern trait" because it "was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible." (CBS News, 4/19/95) According to the controlled media, Emerson's is the subject of constant death threats against him and his organization, which is why his organization had to go "semi-underground," they say. The death of Korsower, who was athletic and believed to be in good health, continues to mystify his family and worry the Israel lobby. An autopsy was inconclusive. "It wasn't an aneurysm. It wasn't a heart attack. It wasn't the obvious things that could happen to a healthy 29-year-old," his mother, Karen Grablowsky, told JTA on Tuesday. "I knew he worked for the Investigative Project. But we thought he was safe," she said, noting that Emerson himself said that it was very unlikely that he would have been targeted. Grablowsky said she understood from Emerson that FBI agents were asking questions in Washington as well. FBI investigations into single homicides are very rare, a former agent said. "The only times they are involved in a homicide is in cases of terrorism, crimes on government reservations -- military bases, federal property -- or, as in the case of Martin Luther King, when someone is killed while carrying out a constitutionally protected activity," said Steve Pomerantz, a former FBI "counter terrorism expert," in an interview with JTA. According to various sources, after completing his IDF service, Korsower studied "Jewish texts" at the Orthodox Pardes Institute in Jerusalem. He returned to the United States two years ago as a member of Emerson's "think tank." His job included co-authoring anti-Arab propaganda pieces with Yonah Alexander, a veteran Israeli agent. (Alexander edited the book Psychological Warfare and Propaganda &kid=125760&cid=46822#>.) Jason's father, Alan Korsower, a medical doctor, was convinced of foul play, and is pressing hard for answers. Korsower didn't seem fearful about the line of work he was in, although he once fretted about a Web site biography that mentioned his Israeli army service, Adler said. A former colleague said the work at Investigative Project drew "unwanted attention," but added that he was doubtful it would result in an actual attack, especially on a relatively low-profile "researcher" like Korsower. You're "going to get people's attention that you may not want to get," said Glen Feder, who also works at Investigative Project. Feder's pro-Israel, anti-Muslim propaganda is disseminated through Front Page Magazine, David Horowtiz's Web site, and National Review. > Post Extras: Print Post 3170325&type=post> -- 911 The Ultimate Conspiracy http://thewebfairy.com/911 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/XgSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> APFN-1 YahooGroups: Subscribe: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apfn-1/join Unsubscribe: apfn-1-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com APFN MSG BOARD: `In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.' http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html APFN CONTENTS PAGE: http://www.apfn.org/old/apfncont.htm Without Justice, there is JUST_US! [LEAK-GATE] INVESTIGATING THE WHITE HOUSE http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/ Find elected officials, including the president, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, local officials, and more. http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/ APFN, PMB 107, 6630 W. CACTUS #B107, GLENDALE, AZ 85304 http://www.apfn.org/apfn/kenvardon.htm Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apfn-1/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: apfn-1-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:55:12 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:55:12 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Losing Control: White House miscalculations Message-ID: Secret Patriot Act II to give Hitler's Powers to Bush "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." Thomas R. Asher Losing Control: White House miscalculations Fri Dec 10, 2004 14:17 http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=72472;title=APFN Losing Control by Thomas R. Asher published by TomPaine.com Losing Control Echoes of Watergate fill the air: a president is charged with misdeeds. He is besieged by plans gone awry, betrayed by underlings blowing whistles, harassed by a once-compliant press and barraged by querulous demands for data, documents and testimony. George W. Bush, who reveres power, is losing his own as events in Washington and Iraq, and their public portrayal, slip from his grasp. His predicaments are rooted less in Lord Acton's adage that "power corrupts" than its corollary that power seduces its holders into overestimating their strength and ignoring its limits. Bush has an inflated sense of several variants of power: bending others to one's will, be they subjects, messengers, adversaries or enemies; silencing dissent; protecting secrets; and building and preserving credibility. The latter is especially important in an election year. The rising visibility of major White House miscalculations before and after 9/11, including the deteriorating situation in Iraq, have unleashed a skunky whiff of Watergate into Washington's springtime air. Bush's credibility is sinking as did Richard Nixon's when caught covering up the misdeeds of his "plumbers;" his clandestine re-election campaign crew that spied on Nixon's opponents. Bush faces a wider range of potential scandals, which include: * Iraq: the rationale for, cost of, and occupation plans following America's conquest (DOS, DOD, CIA, FBI); * Suppressed Medicare costs (HHS) and bioterrorism studies (DOD); * Insufficient terrorism preparedness and prevention, domestic and international, before and after 9/11 (CIA, FBI, DOD, etc.); * Mounting fiscal deficits and tax relief only for the wealthy (Treasury, OMB); and * Skewed or suppressed scientific research and policies (NIH, HHS, FDA, EPA). Furthermore, criminal jeopardy may lurk beneath headlines in the "outing" by senior White House officials of a CIA spy (Valerie Plame) married to an Iraq-issue defector (former Ambassador Joseph Wilson III). In that case, any Bush-Ashcroft effort to delay or derail the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, will evoke memories of Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" when he fired a prosecutor who was closing in on him. Nascent scandals also lie in energy policy (including the vice president's list of advisors, on the Supreme Court's current docket), the environment (relaxing arsenic and mercury rules), frayed relations with allies and the United Nations, and on and on . . . In each trouble spot are current and former officials with information and documents that will, almost surely, further tarnish Mr. Bush and his closest advisors. With so many problems and news from Iraq growing steadily more grisly, Mr. Bush's presidency, like Nixon's, is developing a troubled aura. This will likely beget further difficulties because, as a president's power wanes, the loyalty and obedience of his inner circle and lower-level public employees tends to shrink apace, with each major leak leading to more and larger spurts, like when pressure increases within a frayed hose. With so many problems, no wonder Watergate references are escalating. Veteran journalist Daniel Schorr suggests that Richard Clarke's evidence of administration laxity toward terrorism has "exploded" Mr. Bush's control of his destiny, as did "former White House counsel John Dean, who started President Nixon down the road to ruin." Mr. Dean himself, meanwhile, just published a litany of Bush abuses of power titled Worse than Watergate. And Sen. Ted Kennedy now calls Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam," charging that "this president has now created the largest credibility gap since Richard Nixon." A newspaper editorial about Shiite-Sunni collaborations in Iraq is headlined: "U.S. enemies list grows in Iraq." Those who remember Nixon's chicanery recall his "enemies list" of critics, and how he abused the IRS and other government agencies to harass them. Given the Bush administration's fierce assaults against its critics, from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to Ambassador Wilson to Bush's own former terrorism "czar" Clarke, it would be no surprise to find that he, like the paranoiac Nixon, keeps a similar list, which is likely to grow as his aura of invincibility fades. The president and his administration, in Watergate mode, already find themselves focusing more on damage control than new initiatives, both in Washington and Baghdad. They spend time with lawyers and spinmeisters, rather than policy advisors, and are bogged down in old problems, which prevents them from focusing on the cascade of new ones. Their power to "embed" or bully the skeptical media is diminishing. And Mr. Bush's re-election campaign is increasingly shrill, scattered, partisan and reactive-not the image of serene confidence and control he hoped to project. Watergate words like "credibility gap," "cover-up," "stonewall," and "crisis" abound. As for Iraq, we now hear Vietnam echoes like "chaos," "quagmire" and "nightmare" instead of "liberation," "freedom" and "democracy." As Clarke and others before him warned, the Iraq "liberation" is proving a double blunder, creating more problems than it solved, while diverting resources needed to capture and shut down Al Qaeda's leadership and give Afghanistan and its people the recovery, hope, security and democracy America promised them. The Iraq invasion was launched and celebrated on mighty words and gestures ("liberation," "national security," "Mission Accomplished"). However, reality was quite different, largely because the ideological Mr. Bush confused words with facts and also confused two types of power: the military might to kill and conquer with the very different strengths needed to rebuild a shattered society, establish order and security, and impose democracy upon its mutually mistrustful citizens. So, as Iraq continues to spew bad news and Watergate mode prevails in Washington, Mr. Bush will face a growing chorus of highly credentialed detractors, revealers, accusers and questioners. For example, the Defense Department now concedes that it may require many more troops to "pacify" Iraq. There are new reports of prewar warnings by skeptical generals who were pushed around or pushed aside by Donald Rumsfeld. Nothing has been heard for many months from General Edward Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff sidelined by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz for maintaining before the Iraq invasion, quite correctly, that many more U.S. troops than were allocated were needed to maintain control after Saddam was dispatched. Mr. Bush's multiple misrepresentations and misjudgments put him in position to break a key Watergate speed record. From the Watergate burglary on June 17, 1971 to Nixon's resignation on Aug. 8, 1974, it took some 38 months. In between, Nixon managed to keep the tawdry facts and circumstances under sufficient control to win re-election in 1972. In contrast, from the first "new product" announcement of the Iraq invasion in early September, 2002, to election day November 2, 2004, is a mere 26 months, which would beat Nixon's record by 33 percent. Iraq also may eclipse the presidential war blowback record set by Vietnam. Of course, no civilized exit strategy for American hegemony and troops currently exists and the likelihood of an international takeover is diminished because of (a) little support among our NATO allies, (b) a timorous United Nations, further weakened by the Bush administration's lack of respect and support, and (c) Bush's continued refusal to relinquish effective control. It took six years, from 1962 to 1968, for Vietnam to undo a president, Lyndon Johnson; five years if you count only his time as president. In contrast, the Iraq war began in March, 2003, fewer than 19 months before Election Day 2004. So, Mr. Bush, ever precocious in his reach for and use of power, is being quickly undone, in part, by chronically miscalculating its potency and limits. Call it hubris, the blind pride and arrogance that often precipitates a fall from power. Mr. Bush sees himself as Ronald Reagan's heir-the cheerful and Teflon-coated conservative. Instead, he may find deeper and stickier genetic ancestry in the dark and ultimately disgraced Nixon. SOURCE: http://progressivetrail.org/articles/040420R.Asher.shtml -------------------- The Bush/Rove Domestic Agenda Washington Post, DC - Nov 29, 2004 ... in the Iran-contra affair and Richard Nixon's Watergate cover-up.". ... leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative has ... had anything to do with the leak to Novak ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19837-2004Nov29.html A Sign of Hope for Reporters in CIA Leak Case Los Angeles Times (subscription), CA - Dec 9, 2004 ... had been sent to Niger on the recommendation of his CIA operative wife ... had conversations with administration officials around the time of the leak to Novak. ... Novak case prosecutors argue against reporter protection December 9, 2004 http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-novak09.html WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors said Wednesday journalists have limited legal protection while a lawyer for two reporters who could go to jail for refusing to divulge their sources argued for a broader interpretation of the Constitution. ''There is a level of legal protection,'' lawyer Floyd Abrams told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Abrams represents Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller of the New York Times, who have been subpoenaed in the investigation into the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name that appeared in a syndicated column by the Sun-Times' Robert Novak. AP Secret Patriot Act II to give Hitler's Powers to Bush "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." LEAK-GATE: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/join This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale! http://www.apfn.org/apfn/leakgate.htm Post message: LEAK-GATE at yahoogroups.com Subscribe: LEAK-GATE-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: LEAK-GATE-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com List owner: LEAK-GATE-owner at yahoogroups.com "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be... The People cannot be safe without information." -- Thomas Jefferson http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: LEAK-GATE.gif Type: image/gif Size: 6455 bytes Desc: not available URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:56:16 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:56:16 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] 'I reported the rape within 30 minutes - then watched my career implode' Message-ID: >From http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,11812,1335181,00.html 'I reported the rape within 30 minutes - then watched my career implode' Suzanne Goldenberg reports on the scandal of unpunished sexual assault within the US army Suzanne Goldenberg Monday October 25, 2004 The Guardian The worst thing for Captain Jennifer Machmer was knowing that the US army had actually promoted her rapist. Four years in the military, from proud passing out at West Point to humiliating discharge, had provided an education into the Pentagon's thinking on sexual assault in the ranks, but Machmer never expected an accused rapist to be rewarded. Her story, narrated to a hushed Congressional committee chamber in April this year, was a rare first-person account of the dangers faced by women soldiers during the Iraq war from their fellow troops. With thousands of women on the front line of America's war on terror, the Pentagon has been forced to acknowledge that female soldiers are at risk from their comrades in arms, and that, in the US military, rapists often go unpunished. As Machmer's experiences in uniform reveal, the culture of violence runs deep. In her first command, she was nominally in charge of a soldier who regularly abused and threatened her. Machmer had the soldier transferred, and he was punished with a ?475 fine. In her second posting, in 2002, the military chaplain she was seeing for marriage counselling sexually abused her. Machmer opted for discretion, and did not file a complaint. Later, in Kuwait during the run-up to the American invasion of Iraq in early 2003, she was raped. "There was no way I could file away another violation," she told the congressional committee. After asking herself, "do I stay quiet and just suck up the life that has been ruined, or do I speak out and try to go back to that route I was on," the captain reported the attack within 30 minutes. Then she watched her career implode. Under the narrow definition of military law, the assault was not considered rape - though it would have been under a criminal law in most states. Machmer was discharged against her wishes, on a partial pension because of post-traumatic stress disorder. Her assailant was transferred to a prized post. "The aftermath of the report has been terrifying," she told the Congressional women's caucus. "Every time you turn around, you are re-victimised, and retraumatised." It has been 10 years since the Clinton administration opened up 90% of military jobs to women. More than 200,000 women now serve in the US military, with at least 15,000 stationed in Iraq. Some of the women who put on the uniform and went off to war came home as heroines, like Private Jessica Lynch, whose capture by Iraqi forces was spun by the Pentagon into a tale of military derring-do, or Rachel and Charity Witmer, who returned to their grieving parents in Wisconsin in April after a third sister was killed in Baghdad. Lynndie England, a young soldier from a poor town in West Virginia, became instead the symbol of the ugly American, grinning and giving the thumbs-up to scenes of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. As now seems clear, the Pentagon could not sustain its military presence in Iraq without women soldiers. However, activists say the military establishment has done little to protect its female troops. As the committee hearing broke up, Machmer told reporters that she came to trust the Iraqis more than her fellow soldiers. As in the civilian world, the greatest threat comes from known colleagues, says Christine Hansen, director of the Miles Foundation, an independent advocacy organisation for victims of violence. "Predominantly, we are seeing that these are acquaintance rapes, that the victims and the alleged assailant know each other. It might be your battle buddy, or a friend of your battle buddy who is in another squad." As of September this year, the Miles Foundation had received credible reports of rape or sexual assault (in the period August 2002 to August 2003) from 243 women serving in the US military in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Afghanistan. An additional 431 instances of assault were reported elsewhere. No figures are available for the rape of male soldiers serving in Iraq, although campaigners say there are such cases. Meanwhile, the Miles Foundation says it has charted a sharp increase in reports of domestic violence among military families with soldiers returned from the war. Hansen believes the reported rapes account for just a fraction of the attacks. Most of the known victims were senior non-commissioned officers or officers - which Hansen says suggests that junior personnel are even more afraid of coming forward. And who could blame them? A woman who reports a rape often suffers hazing (humiliation) and retaliation. She may be forced to continue serving with her attacker. In extreme cases, she may be thrown in the brig [military jail] and be accused of sexual misconduct. "It's a career ender," says Louise Slaughter, a Democratic congresswoman from New York and leader of the women's caucus. "The sad thing is that, in addition to everything else, we are losing brain power, and people who would be extraordinary soldiers." Meanwhile, the US military has become notorious as an institution reluctant to confront a culture of abuse. Since 1991, when 83 women were assaulted at the annual Tailhook pilots' convention, the Pentagon has had ample evidence of the abuse of women within the ranks. In 2002, a civilian rape-crisis centre near Sheppard air base in Texas saw two dozen new recruits who were victims of assaults. Last year, the national air force academy was shaken by reports from women cadets of rape and humiliation that went unpunished by their superiors. During the last Gulf war, 8% of women sent overseas were sexually assaulted or raped, according to a study by researchers for the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Other surveys of women soldiers have confirmed the trend; sexual assault is widespread, and there are rarely consequences for the assailant. According to the Miles Foundation, fewer than 3% of reported assaults result in courts martial, let alone punishment. That was Sheri Chance's experience after she was drugged and sexually assaulted by a navy recruiter in February 2001. "The last conscious thing I remember is that I hit my head," she says. She woke up in the recruitment office in Peru, Illinois as the assault was underway. Chance reported the attack when she arrived at boot camp. After a one-day trial, the man who attacked her was fined one month's pay. Chance was discharged from the navy. "When all of this started happening to me I thought I was the first. Now it seems like it was constant all the time," she says. Over the years, the Pentagon has launched repeated investigations into sex scandals. When the first reports of sexual abuse of women serving in Iraq emerged, the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, ordered an official inquiry. Last month he appointed female officer Brigadier General KC McClain, who investigated rape cases at Sheppard air base two years ago, to head a new joint task force for sexual assault prevention and response. But advocates say that such fact-finding missions are a substitute for real change. "We have known for a long time that there is a problem with sexual assault in the military. There have been more than 40 surveys in 16 years," says Carolyn Maloney, a New York congresswoman, "yet sexual assaults have gone up 19% since 1991. What is very frustrating is that the military has allowed these problems to get worse. What we have to do is to move past the acknowledgement that there is a problem and try to address it." In recent months, women's organisations have pressed the Pentagon for reform, demanding amendments to military law to encourage prosecution for assault, and urging new procedures in the war zone. By the Pentagon's admission, the US military's record on sexual assault, from protecting victims and their privacy to prosecuting assailants, is "inconsistent and incomplete". In a report issued in May, the Pentagon noted that there was no uniform definition of rape or sexual harassment under military law. The military had also failed to institute widespread sensitivity training for commanding officers, or to make counselling services available to women who had been assaulted. It is not even properly equipped to investigate such crimes: in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, fewer than 100 rape-detective kits (which collect crucial DNA evidence) have been distributed to field hospitals. The backlog for DNA testing in rape investigations is 16 months, and overstretched commanders are disinclined to investigate reports of assault. That was the experience of Beth Jameson, a major in the US army reserve, who was assigned to a large staging area in Kuwait. She was raped on March 20 2003, the first night of the war, in the shower block during an alert for a feared chemical attack. In May this year she told ABC television: "I donned my mask and my chemical suit, and my gloves, and my boots, everything. So I stayed there and waited for the all-clear sign to come about. Well, then all of a sudden there was a knock on the bathroom door. And the door opened and somebody said, are you OK? And I gave my thumb up, saying, yeah, I'm fine. And the door shut. And then, it seems like a split-second later, the door just flew open and this person jumped in. He turned on me, kneed me in the groin and pushed me in the back of the bathroom. He pushed me to the ground and I fought with him." She soon became convinced that the authorities were not interested in a prosecution. The investigators asked repeatedly if she had been having an affair with her attacker. She was also told that military regulations did not permit investigators to match the semen sample against the DNA registry of US service personnel, which is maintained to identify remains. Major Jameson told ABC: "I'm just angry now at the system - the military system that won't protect the victim. I understand now why women don't bring forward the fact that they've been attacked - because they're made to be the victim again." Guardian Unlimited ? Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ----------------------------- "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." (Steve Biko) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:56:58 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:56:58 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Final Day of Action for Tenzin Delek - Speak Up! Message-ID: Tenzin Delek Week of Action - Day 9 Students for a Free Tibet Welcome to the last day of the Worldwide Week of Action for Tenzin Delek Rinpoche! In the past few days, we have called Chinese embassies around the world and asked them to convey our message to Beijing. Now is the time for us to bring our demand directly to the Chinese government. Today, please call the following offices in China: Sichuan High Court: +86-28-86960000 (Rinpoche was sentenced in this court two years ago. This court refers to Tenzin Delek as Ah-ahn Tashi - "Lama Tashi") People's Court of the Nationalities: +86-10-665080009 China's Supreme Court: +86-10-65290114 (ask for the secretary of the Chief Justice) China's Foreign Ministry: +86-10-65961114 (ask for the secretary of Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing - pronounced "Lee Jao-shing"). You can also email the Foreign Ministry at webmaster at mfa.gov.cn If the person on the line does not speak English, just say: "Shi Fong Tenzin Delek," which means: "Release Tenzin Delek." If he/she continues to listen, say: "Thah Woo Zooay!!!" which means: "He is innocent." Remember: - You are calling to ask China not to execute a Tibetan monk who is in prison, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche. - Tenzin Delek could be executed in the next few weeks for crimes he did not commit. - China must overturn his death sentence and free him. Many of you have told us about your incredible interactions with Chinese authorities around the world -- keep it up! We've heard from sources at the highest levels of government that our actions are having a powerful impact on the Chinese government, and that we should keep up the pressure. THANK YOU for working to save this innocent man. Free Tenzin. Free Tibet. --Han, Freya, Lhadon, Sonam, Tendor, Thupten, Alma and the SFT crew -------------------------------------------------------------- Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this. Tell-a-friend! If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Students for a Free Tibet's Action Center. This message was sent to deano700 at msn.com. Visit your subscription management page to modify your email communication preferences or update your personal profile. To stop ALL email from Students for a Free Tibet's Action Center, click to remove yourself from our lists (or reply via email with "remove" in the subject line). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:58:16 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:58:16 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] "Contract Meals Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners Message-ID: WHAT'S NEW ON CORPWATCH Holding Corporations Accountable << http://www.corpwatch.org >> THIS WEEK "CONTRACT MEALS DISASTER" FOR IRAQI PRISONERS by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch New evidence suggests that the Abu Ghraib prisoners were subjected not only to torture and psychological abuse, they were underfed, malnurished and made to eat food so bad it inspired riots. A little-known private contractor, run by an American civilian, is said to be to blame. ****** WORKING ASSETS SUBSCRIBERS CAN VOTE FOR CORPWATCH! Are you a Working Assets customer? If so, VOTE for CorpWatch in the 2004 Workings Assets Donation Ballot. The more members who vote for us the more money we receive. The deadline to vote is 12/31/04. http://www.workingassets.com/voting/ HOT OFF THE PRESS! Seven Stories Press publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" Read the most complete chronicle to date of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Donate to CorpWatch and get your own copy today! http://www.corpwatch.org/donate ****** IN THE NEWS CANADA: Natives' Land Battles Bring a Shift in Economy http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11740 US: Pension Fund of New York Files Suit Against Merck http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11741 NIGERIA: Villagers Seize Shell Oil Platforms http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11742 CHINA: Jet Fuel Scandal Deals Nation a Body Blow http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11745 ACTION ALERTS "WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception" Coming to Theaters This December http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11739 Help Put the "Class" Back into Class Rings! http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11743 __________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: corp-watchers at lists.corpwatch.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: corp-watchers-unsubscribe at lists.corpwatch.org For all list information and functions, including changing your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page: http://lists.corpwatch.org/lists/info/corp-watchers =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- New Address! CorpWatch -- Holding Corporations Accountable 1611 Telegraph Ave, Suite 702 Oakland, CA 94612 USA Tel: 510-271-8080 Fax: 510-271-8083 Email: corpwatch at corpwatch.org URL: http://www.corpwatch.org =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:58:54 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:58:54 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Will The US Sink Like The Titantic? Message-ID: rense.com Will The US Sink Like The Titantic? By Frosty Wooldridge NewsWithViews.com 12-6-4 What if you were a passenger on the Titanic? What different choices would you have made if you knew what was going to happen to you? To your children? Would you have approached the captain insisting he change course? What if he ignored you? Would you have enlisted a hundred fellow passengers to support your demand to change course, slow down or steam into warmer waters? If he still refused, would you have given up and suffered your destiny? Would you have been relentless and gathered 1000 passengers behind you to insist that the captain change course? Remember this, "Conviction without action is worthless." Much like the Titanic that sank on April 15, 1912, the Unites States stands at a critical juncture in the history of our nation. Few realize it, but, like the Titanic, this nation smashed into a piece of legislation in 1965 that was never asked for or approved by the American public. Our 'Captain' Lyndon B. Johnson along with helmsman Senator Teddy Kennedy drove America into an 'iceberg' of massive, unrestricted immigration that opened up the flood gates with the "IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT." At first, the flow of one million immigrants annually wasn't noticed. We showed benevolence. We enjoyed a big country. We featured plenty of room and resources. However, the massive flow of humanity from that 'hit' still pours into our country 39 years later and few seem to notice--much like the party-goers and dancing on the Titanic that kept up for hours after hitting the iceberg in the North Atlantic. However, even the invincible Titanic could not survive the onslaught from the constant flow of incoming water--slowly, methodically stealing its ability to stay afloat. Today in the United States, 60 million immigrants later and pouring in at 4.1 million annually--both legal and illegal--our nation shudders from San Francisco to New York and from Chicago to Miami. We rose from 200 million to nearly 300 million in three decades. What was once a benefit to our country is now a full-scale overpopulation and societal crisis. >From stem to stern, our English language is under assault and our schools are drowning in ethnic violence, rapes, drugs and gang warfare. In California, Texas, Florida and Arizona, our hospitals suffer bankruptcies from non-paid services for 350,000 annual 'anchor babies'. Ten million illegal immigrants displace jobs from America's working poor and depress wages for many others at a cost of $133 billion annually in lost jobs. Leprosy, tuberculosis, Chagas Disease, hepatitis and other diseases 'pour' into our country within the bodies of illegal immigrants who avoid health screening before coming on board the United States. Even worse, clashing cultures with religions that celebrate 'female genital mutilation' and subjugation of women are growing in enclaves around our country. As Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself can not stand." On the environmental front, our nation explodes toward an added 200 million people that will reach one half billion by mid century. We are creating an 'irreversible crisis' with 'unsolvable problems.' California is slated to add 20 million in 30 years. Colorado will add five million by mid century. Arizona will add four million. They already don't have enough water. Florida cannot survive another five million people. New York shudders with its population problems. Air pollution poisons what we breathe and massive sprawl devours our once lauded spaciousness. Species extinction accelerates as we add numbers. Much like the Titanic, our standard of living drops and our quality of life sinks with the influx of unrestricted immigration. Soon, we too, will become like the countries of Bangladesh, India and China. It's called the 'Tragedy of the Commons' which I will address in a later commentary. On the employment front, our leaders insource, outsource and offshore our jobs to Third World countries while they import the Third World into our country. Our Congress created H-1B and L-1 visas that have displaced one million high tech American workers in the past decade. America's middle class is being driven into the unemployment lines. Our schools are becoming dysfunctional towers of Babel with over 100 languages. We can not stay afloat with this kind of linguistic chaos. Yes, we have compassion for immigrants, but it's our country and our children. Their leaders need to take care of them in their countries. Unfortunately, Congress and the leadership of this nation refuse to step below the water line to see how fast we are sinking. We're $7.384 trillion in debt. We suffer $200 trillion consumer debt and the average credit card shows an $8,000.00 balance! There were 20 different languages on the California recall ballot. Whose country is this anyway? Our leaders are standing in the wheelhouse totally insulated and isolated from those of us who shovel the coal, build houses, repair cars, teach our kids, drive school busses and plow roads. We cannot save the world, but we can destroy our country if we fail to act. Like the Titanic that cracked in half before plunging to the depths because no one stopped the incoming water, the United States like all great nations before us, could sink. You can see the signs all around our country. If you look about you, we're shuddering from bow to aft-from the stacks to the rudder. Who is steering our nation and why are they heading toward more icebergs instead of changing course? What can you do? You are just as much an American patriot as Paul Revere, Betsy Ross, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony, Lincoln and the soldiers from Valley Forge to the Jungles of Vietnam and deserts of Iraq. It's time to start riding, stitching, writing, charging, demonstrating and fighting for our country within our country. We must seal our borders against this invasion from a line that never ends. Since our leaders won't stop this invasion of an 'unarmed army' of legal and illegal immigrants, it's up to you. Our children face a dangerous future if we fail to take action. It wasn't George Washington who beat the British army. It was every militiaman who shot from fence lines and trees. It wasn't Ike who won WWII. It was every GI who slung a rifle over his soldier. Susan B. Anthony marched and Dr. Martin Luther King demonstrated. They, in their time, paid the price for defending America so we could enjoy our freedom. This is your time. The worst decision you can make is to think you can do so little that you do nothing at all. Be the snowflake that joins with millions of other Americans that creates an avalanche of public protest against this invasion. Write me for a 20-point action letter that will empower you into becoming the most powerful snowflake in America. We must change course and you must relentlessly demand it from our leaders. Remember: WE WIN! ? 2004 Frosty Wooldridge - All Rights Reserved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:00:49 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:00:49 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: BACK IN THE USSR Message-ID: MadCow Morning News 12.09.2004 now up at TheMadCowMorningNews www.madcowprod.com CIA "Helpful" in Florida, Ukraine Elections A retired CIA agent, whose illegal and unfettered access to election rolls in Martin County Florida was a major source of legal contention after the 2000 Election, traveled to the Ukraine four years earlier to teach "grass-roots politics" to people there, The MadCowMorningNews has learned. In a bitterly ironic twist, Charles Kane, former Director of Security at the Central Intelligence Agency, and member in 2000 of Florida Republican Executive Committee, spent four days in Kiev, the capital of the former Soviet republic, hosting training sessions for Ukrainian political parties in 1996. In another strange development, both Ohio and Florida, the twin states needed to with the Presidency, experienced still-unexplained terror alerts which could have impacted the results of the election. In the building in Tallahassee housing the heart of Florida's election machine, the central tabulating computer, an evacuation order was issued by law enforcement authorities who cordoned off, on the day before the election, the heart of Florida's election machine, the central tabulating computer, after a package was supposedly discovered vibrating in a storage room housing "quilts and other artwork that is part of the department's historic archive." "Calling out the troops" to protect Florida's collection of quilts seems a curious excuse, especially given their proximity to the state's central tabulating computer. They must be really important quilts. Read the whole story at: TheMadCowMorningNews www.madcowprod.com "When Matt & Katie aren't enough." This email sent by MadCow Morning News To be excluded from future mailings click here to unsubscribe If you would prefer to receive this email in a text only format click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:00:12 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:00:12 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: What Are You...On Drugs? Message-ID: rense.com What Are You...On Drugs? With so many Americans popping prescription meds, who needs nature and sex and exercise? By Mark Morford SF Gate Columnist 12-8-4 The odds are very good that you are on drugs. Right now. This minute. As I type this and as you read this and as false Texas dictators rise and sad empires crumble and as this mad bewildered world spins in its frantically careening orbit, there's a nearly 50/50 chance that some sort of devious synthetic chemical manufactured by some massive and largely heartless corporation is coursing through your bloodstream and humping your brain stem and molesting your karma and kicking the crap out of your libido and chattering the teeth of your very bones. Maybe it's regulating your blood pressure. Maybe it's keeping your cholesterol in check. Maybe it's helping you sleep. Maybe it's helping you wake the hell up. Maybe it's opening your bronchial tubes. Maybe it's brightening your terminally bleak outlook. Maybe it's adjusting your hormone levels or controlling your urge to weep every minute or relaxing the blood vessels in your penis or cranking the serotonin to your brain or pumping carefully measured slugs of any number of substances with Latin-rooted jawbreaker names through your flesh in a bizarre dance of miraculous vaguely disturbing death-defying scientific wonder. http://www.mentalhealth.com /drug/p30-x01.htmlalprazolam or http://www.mentalhealth.com /drug/p30-p05.htmlfluoxetine or http://www.mentalhealth.com /drug/p30-z02.htmlsertraline or http://www.rxlist.com /cgi/generic/atorvastatin.htmatorvastatin or http://www.purplepill.comesomeprazole or http://www.mentalhealth.com /drug/p30-b08.htmlbuspirone or http://www.mentalhealth.com /drug/p30-e02.htmlvenlafaxine or Forty-four percent of all Americans. That's the latest number. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/news/archive/2004/12/02/financial1108EST0099.DTL Almost half us are popping at least one prescription drug and fully one in six are popping three or more, http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? f=/g/a/2004/12/08/notes120804.DTL&nl=fix -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:02:12 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:02:12 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Million Worker March defies AFL-CIO: Takes to the Streets Message-ID: Freedom Socialist ? Vol. 25, No. 5 ? December 2004-January 2005 Million Worker March in Washington defies AFL-CIO and calls for a fighting labor movement by Jonathon Hurd October 17, 2004 was a milestone for U.S. labor: thousands of unionists, antiwar activists, and students, representing millions more like them, gathered in Washington, D.C., to call for politically independent activism by and for working people. The forward thrust of the event stood in stark contrast to the AFL-CIO?s failed strategy of support for John Kerry. Defying top national labor officials, rally-goers amassed at the Lincoln Memorial not to promote one capitalist politician over another, but to press their demands regardless of who occupies the White House. This was the class-conscious element of the labor movement, working people determined to speak for themselves ? and confident that who is president matters less than who is in the streets. Inspired by the march led by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963, the Million Worker March was spearheaded by International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 in San Francisco. "For too long has the labor movement been defensive and concessionary," said Trent Willis. "The Million Worker March is about changing that!" MWM co-chair Willis and other African American labor leaders from the ILWU and Teamsters Black Caucus provided the spark for the event and were central organizers. Their willingness to go against the tide, along with the predominance of people of color on the rally stage and in the crowd, showed once again where to look for leadership for genuine change: from the most oppressed workers who need it most. The rally?s extensive demands included jobs, healthcare, and housing for all; quality public education; a clean environment; and an end to Iraq war. (See www.millionworkermarch.org for more.) In addressing how to achieve these aims, many speakers discussed the history of U.S. labor radicalism, including the massive strikes of the 1930s. Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) leader Heidi Durham, a key organizer in the Northwest MWM committee, delivered a scathing indictment of the Democrats, including their rollback of unemployment benefits in Washington state. To roaring applause, she called for socialism as the ultimate solution to the attacks on workers. Said Durham, "The time is now to rock the house of labor, no matter who gets elected." Standing up to bureaucrats. The thousands of people who came to D.C., and the hundreds of unions that endorsed, did so despite the very vocal disapproval of the AFL-CIO labor federation. AFL-CIO leaders, believing that resources would be better used in the effort to elect John Kerry, explicitly instructed federation-affiliated unions not to support the MWM. This undoubtedly had an effect, but didn?t stop the event. As Seattle ILWU member Celso Tolman remarked, "If they are not willing to lead, then we will lead and they can follow." Giselle Quezada, a phone tech who travelled from San Francisco to be in D.C., observed, "My union, the Communications Workers of America, does more to represent the company than to represent its members. Our voices are not being heard." The determination of unionists like Quezada and Tolman to breathe new life into labor made the MWM not only possible, but historic. For a world without war. Prominent themes were opposition to the Iraq war and occupation and the need for internationalism in confronting corporate globalization and U.S. imperialism. Picket signs demanded, "Union Jobs and Health Benefits, Not War!" Other signs and banners expressed solidarity with Iraqis, Palestinians, and the U.S. soldiers who three days earlier had refused to run a suicidal convoy. Angela C. Davis, an African American unionist from New York City, expressed the urgency of protesting, "especially at a time when most of the antiwar movement is putting their energy into electing Kerry." Women of color, Davis said, play a crucial leadership role. "We are disproportionately affected by poverty, lack of healthcare, and by going to war." From the podium, Larry Holmes, chair of the International Action Center, called for work stoppages, boycotts and student walkouts to "end this war right now!" A woman from Haiti brought news of murder and repression following the U.S.-backed coup against Aristide. Lybon Mabasa, a socialist from South Africa, explained how the international debt racked up under apartheid still cripples his country?s economy. Messages of solidarity were delivered from countries including Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, the Philippines, Pakistan, and England. A new generation springs forward. Another heartening feature of the day was the number of young people in attendance. "We need the hip-hop nation to rise up!" declared MWM co-chair Willis. And, indeed, it was striking how many of the students participating in the rally are doing just that, as activists back home in campus groups. "It?s inspiring to see people my age who have labor on their minds," said Danielle Weeks, 23, a student at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. "The youth are important in this movement." Na?Dina Mosley, 21, flew to D.C. from Seattle to represent Political Staff Workers Union, made up of staffers for the FSP, Radical Women (RW), and this newspaper. She and her co-unionists organized a raffle and sold tickets to raise funds for her trip. For Mosley, the event held special significance. Her mother, a former Black Panther, was part of the movement fighting for equal opportunity over 20 years ago. In our hands is placed the power. Following the demonstration, at a packed reception hosted by FSP and RW participants at their hotel, Japanese railway workers and MWM organizers talked with unionists from around the U.S. Everyone agreed the rally was a victory, but only a beginning. What was clear was the potential of the power of those who had gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, and the need to push forward despite all odds. As MWM co-chair Clarence Thomas said, "It is critical for working people to understand that the only time we gain any concessions from the system is when we organize independently of the two parties." The inglorious defeat of the Democratic Party in 2004 creates a new opportunity to develop something that has been a long time coming: workingclass political leadership independent of that party, and of the AFL-CIO officials who are bound to it. Jonathon Hurd, an electrical trainee and Northwest MWM Organizing Committee member, can be reached at jonathon_hurd at yahoo.com. Return to Index page for this issue Return to Freedom Socialist newspaper main page Return to FSP homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:05:27 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:05:27 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Speech Fidel Castro at Young Communists 8th Congress Message-ID: Speech given by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Republic of Cuba, at the closing session of the Young Communists League 8th Congress,held in the Havana Convention Center, Havana, 5 December 2004 Dear delegates, guests and attendees to the Young Communists League 8th Congress: Communists: Some of the concepts I will touch upon today have already been discussed and published; some have been developed in the heat of the struggle; others refer to goals we have attained; others are just reflections. Today, when you have invited me to address you, I shall try to explain how and why this day is very special for all of us. Unfortunately, the responsibility I have shouldered throughout this intense and difficult revolutionary process and, in particular, my relation with the Battle of Ideas, oblige me to make reference to my own speeches, ideas and concepts, something which in no way pleases me, so I beg your indulgence in advance. I have never believed that ideas orbit around public figures; rather, it is the latter that ought to orbit around ideas. The fact that I dared to make so many predictions that, today, people are recognizing as irrefutable truths stems exclusively from the experience I have accumulated. I could have died young, as did many other Cuban revolutionaries throughout our history. Yesterday's and today's enemies did everything humanly possible to achieve this aim, but I had the privilege of having struggled for many years, since early 1953, when we had the idea of seizing the Santiago de Cuba Regiment's weapons to initiate the struggle. The credit for this privilege is not mine; the true credit belongs to those who stood by their beliefs and were willing to sacrifice even their lives for the aims we espoused. Only three days ago, when some congratulated me, reminding me of the 48th anniversary of the Granma landing, my first reaction was one of surprise. How much time has gone by and how much has occurred! Engrossed in our present duties, some of us who took part in that action have hardly a second to look back on the beginning of that long march on which we were embarking in the days of Moncada and Granma. I would describe it all as a long learning process; it is amazing how ignorant we were when we set out on that unknown road. Allow me to give you a concise summary, often using quotes, of the essentials of what I expressed on three different occasions prior to the Battle of Ideas, whose spirit today reigns over the 8th Congress of our prestigious Young Communists League. On October 8, 1997, in the Central Report to the Party's 5th Congress, I said: "It is obvious that we need to work more closely and intensely with our youth organizations, as these times and this Party need a continuous influx of young cadres and members. "Now more than ever, more than at any other juncture --this being the most difficult, the toughest of times-- I believe we must devote special efforts to our young people and their education, because those who come after this generation must be better. "We want them to be fully conscious of their role, of what they can do for their country, of what they can do for the Revolution, of what they can do for their future". On October 10, 1997, in my remarks about youths in the closing session of the Party's 5th Congress, I pointed out: "We have the Party, we have our wonderful young people --yes, that's what I said, wonderful young people-- whom we will of course ask to do more and more political work, political work which is not the same as parroting a slogan. For a long time, the Party was also, at times, simplistic and dogmatic, working with slogans instead of arguments. "We must work directly with the people, on a one by one basis; this means more than the work done through the press and television, through conferences or political meetings. The work of convincing and persuading human beings, one by one, is historic. Religions were created this way and have lasted thousands of years. "We revolutionaries must do the same. Our cadres and young people must work like this and never consider anyone a lost cause. "Based on the profoundest conviction that we are right and that we are defending what is fairest, most beautiful, most human, we must discuss things for as long as we need to, explain things as many times as necessary, we must teach and educate. Political work cannot be done in the abstract. We must delve more deeply into knowledge, into ideas, into what happens here and in the world. We must be frank, courageous, and truthful. "There are 780, 000 Party members, and then there are all of the revolutionaries who are not Party members. It is everyone's job to make what is in many cases an exception the rule and our best experiences the norm. How could we not achieve this? What are we? What is our worth, if we cannot achieve it? Given everything we know today, and all of the possibilities open to us, we must do it. That would be the true victory of ideas". On December 10, 1998, at the YCL's 7th Congress, I said: "We must meet, in the heat of battle, with the leading cadres to discuss, analyze, expand on and draft plans and strategies, to take up issues and elaborate ideas, as when an army's general staff meets. "We must use solid arguments to talk to members and non-members, to speak to those who may be confused or even to discuss and debate with those holding positions contrary to those of the Revolution or who are influenced by imperialist ideology in this great battle of ideas we have been waging for years now, precisely in order to carry out the heroic deed of resisting against the most politically, militarily, economically, technologically and culturally powerful empire that has ever existed. Young cadres must be well prepared for this task. "In this ideological struggle, ideas are our fundamental weapons; our most important ammunition are also ideas. We have to arm our cadres with ideas so that they, in turn, can pass these on to the young and to all of the people. "This army knows the plan and the strategy; let the enemy learn what these are as it goes along. I am again comparing this struggle to a great battle waged by a vanguard army, an elite troop of the Revolution. I put the Revolution and the Party first; they are, after all, one and the same thing. "In a short meeting with the new National Committee, I was able to talk to you more freely as fewer comrades were present, and we could speak even more freely and take up more discussion and opinions at a meeting with the National Bureau. "This 7th Congress", I said then, "has been an excellent congress, one where discussions covered the broadest range of topics, where nothing led us to shy away from any issue; on the contrary, we were constantly urged to take up all of the issues, no matter how thorny or complex, in order to make the most of this meeting, and I feel we have accomplished this. "This has been possible, we must say this categorically, thanks to the extraordinary work that has been done over the course of a year, under the leadership of the YCL's National Bureau. In fact at this point, where thanks are usually given, we should sincerely and wholeheartedly acknowledge the comrades in the Bureau and the numerous cadres who, under Otto's leadership, have been working from the time the congress was called up to this very minute. "All of us have learned something; not only you, we have learned too. "The Congress," I added, "shows that the YCL has become increasingly strong and that it is better organized, has more experience, greater prestige and influence than ever in key, truly strategic sectors of today's society and --even more so-- in tomorrow's society, tomorrow's Cuba. It is organized in the way these times, this historic moment, require! "One of the extraordinary things about our Revolution is that, ever since it came into being --and it could be said that our Revolution's ideas were begotten on that university hill-- the Revolution and our young people have been as closely bound as identical, one could even say Siamese, twins. I invite you to try and find in any other country in the world a bond as strong as it has existed, exists and shall always exist in this profoundly revolutionary process. Our Revolution is reborn each day, because the ideas we stand for, the justice that we defend, the cause we fight for, is today the cause, and there can be no cause other than that of the billions of people who live on this planet. "I say ideas because the struggle we are speaking about will not, in essence, be a war, but rather a battle of ideas. The world's problems shall not be solved through the use of nuclear weapons -- this is impossible-- nor through wars. What's more, they shall not be solved through isolated revolutions that, within the order installed by neo-liberal globalization, can be crushed within a matter of days, weeks at the most. "We cannot, however, neglect defense for even a minute, because given the unavoidable crises, a change of government, a fascist-like or far-right party in power is all it will take to return the empire to its adventuristic ways of old. We cannot overlook the risk of a military invasion. Today, the real battle is the battle of ideas. "The Revolution was able to hold out because it sowed ideas. "The world is rapidly being globalized; an unsustainable and intolerable world economic order is rapidly being established. Ideas are the raw material from which consciousness is forged; they are the raw material of ideology par excellence. I prefer to call them the raw material of consciousness to emphasize that it is not a question of strict and rigid ideology, but rather of an advanced consciousness, that is to say, a conviction that hundreds of millions and billions of people on this planet will inevitably arrive at, and that it will constitute, without a doubt, the best instrument to secure the victory of those ideas throughout the world. "Not weapons but ideas will decide this universal battle, and not because of some intrinsic value, but because of how closely they relate to the objective reality of today's world. These ideas stem from the conviction that, mathematically speaking, the world has no other way out that imperialism is unsustainable, that the system that has been imposed on the world leads to disaster, to an insurmountable crisis, and, I dare say, sooner rather than later. "It is based on these premises and these convictions that I evaluate what we have analyzed and what we are doing these days. It is not the only way of doing it, far from it, but it is valuable because it is essential. "This battle you are waging cannot be lost. Without the tasks you must complete, without the work you will carry out --and you will be totally successful, I have no doubt of that-- we could not even speak of our dreams, not only dreams for our compatriots, but also for all of the people in this world. "Never before, or anywhere else, has a people done what the people of Cuba are doing today. And what it is doing today with ideas, sowing ideas, cultivating and developing ideas; this cannot lead to anything but the victory of ideas, to the firm belief that this Revolution shall not disappear nor crumble, because it is firmly planted in deeply rooted and ideas that are constantly evolving. "Just ideas are invincible. Of them, Mart? said: `Trenches made of ideas are stronger than those made of stones' and `a just cause -- even one buried in the depths of a cave-- is mightier than an army'. "Ideas are not simply an instrument to build consciousness and lead people to fight. Today, they have become the main weapon in the struggle, not a source of inspiration, not a guide, not a directive, but the main weapon of the struggle. "We are not dogmatic nor can we be dogmatic, we are to avoid any sort of dogmas, as we believe in truly dialectical and flexible minds, which does not mean to admit even the slightest opportunism or pragmatism. "We are flexible and dialectical because of our most rigid adherence to the principles and objectives of our revolutionary process and the new goals which we didn't ask anybody for, which we didn't hope or plan for, but which life and the history of these past decades have imposed on our country and our revolutionaries. And, this being the case, we have no other option but to fight with all our strength, thinking not only of ourselves but also of the well-being that the fruits of our struggle might bear for so many people around the world". As fate would have it, the colossal Battle of Ideas that our people has been waging for exactly five years today began just one year after those words were spoken. On July 5, 2000, on bestowing the "Carlos Manuel de C?spedes Order" on Miguel Gonz?lez, I looked back on how I had met him a year before, on December 2 to be precise, and how the battle for Eli?n's return had begun. That day, I said: "I asked him a number of questions and, although he was obviously hurting and sad, he answered them with persuasive arguments and irrefutable proof of his affectionate, faultless and steadfast relationship with his son. "At every moment, I could see in his face the features of a noble, sincere and serious man. "I told him that I was convinced that the boy would never be returned through legal procedures. This was a case in which the U.S. courts had absolutely no jurisdiction, and it was the duty of the U.S. immigration authorities to proceed with the immediate repatriation of his son. But, I was well aware of the arrogant, arbitrary, biased and conspiratorial behavior of the U.S. authorities with regard to any misdeeds and crimes committed against our people. The return of this boy could only be accomplished through an intense national and international political battle of public opinion". The following day --as I said at that ceremony-- I spoke with other Party leaders and, without wasting a minute, I got in touch with leaders of the Young Communists League and the University Student Federation. Young people and students would be in the vanguard of this struggle, with the full support of all revolutionary forces. Forty-eight hours later, on a Sunday evening like today exactly five years ago, one thousand young people from the Youth Technical Brigades who were just concluding a national conference took part in the first protest march held outside the US Interests Section. Thus began the epic struggle for Eli?n's freedom. The battle for a child quickly became a battle for justice and the happiness of all our children and all of our people. Guided by the profoundest conviction, already expressed in my closing remarks to the 7th Youth Congress I mentioned above, that ideas are the most important weapon in humanity's fight for its own salvation, the battle we began was not only one of thoughts, discussion, arguments and counter-arguments, but also of concrete facts and actions as well. As part of the Battle of Ideas' work group, the Young Communists League has coordinated and spurred on nearly 200 revolutionary programs that have been created as a result of this struggle. In these past few years, I have devoted over seven thousand hours of fruitful and unforgettable labor to the tasks of exchanging ideas, analyzing and giving guidance to this group, the majority of whose members are YCL leaders and workers', students' and women's representatives led by our Party. We have worked all this time to develop a critical rather than self- indulgent vision of our undertaking and our historical objectives. We have put into practice revolutionary concepts, which sweep away formalism and conformism and accelerate the transformation processes needed for our country's future. Some have been taken from the very notes taken by YCL cadres and by others who participate in our meetings. They include: No youth should be abandoned and no person should be left alone to face his fate. The YCL must work with every youth. Behind every category and every percentage is a man, a woman, a child or senior citizen. There is a solution to every problem; it is a question of finding alternatives. Any coordination work must be based on continuous analysis and up-to-date information so that decisions take precise account of the details; every action must be thought through, one must act quickly and never lose a minute. New coordination methods and mechanisms must be found so that all bodies and organizations participate with the understanding that the nation's interests are over and above bureaucratic contradictions, cravings for power and institutional jealousy. Secure high levels of involvement and commitment from those cadres and workers who participate in each and every one of the programs. To exercise criticism and reflection wherever needed. Every idea always leads to a new idea and this new idea leads to more and more ideas. A new idea, no matter how good it seems, must be previously tested and undergo thorough experiments under real conditions. Discretion and compartmentalization are basic principles in program coordination and orientation. Programs shall be made public only after they have become realities; this way, we shall avoid promises that cannot be kept or that are kept and then ignored, forgotten or cast aside. Participating companies should neither make profits nor bear losses. Works must be executed quickly, within the budget, with quality and an optimal use of resources. Maintenance for equipment and facilities made available to these programs shall be provided. Everything must always be as good as new. To this small sample of what remained in the cadres' minds, we could add hundreds of examples of what the cadres came up with when faced with the need to act swiftly and guarantee success. We had to make up for all the time lost in routine, simplistic thinking and other habits that hinder progress and frustrate the objectives that only a truly socialist system can achieve. One day, literally said: "Notwithstanding the rights and guarantees offered to all citizens of any race and background, the Revolution has not been as successful in its struggle to eradicate differences in the social and economic status of Cuba's black population, even though this sector plays an important role in many highly significant areas, including education and health". These were the very words I said with no hesitation whatsoever, on February 7 last year, at the closing session of the International Pedagogy Congress 2003, which took place in the heat of the Battle of Ideas. This idea about the sad legacy of slavery, class society, capitalism and imperialism was something I had been carrying inside me and wanted to declare publicly. Nowhere has there ever existed equality of opportunities. The possibility of studying, obtaining higher qualifications or a university degree was the exclusive privilege of the more knowledgeable and economically powerful sectors. It was only the exception among the poor who was able to beat the system. The huge strides made by socialism had created the foundations, but we still had to take the great leap forward. Thanks to the Battle of Ideas, we can today say that the lives of children, teenagers, young people and the Cuban family is not the same as it was five years ago. Today, a primary school teacher is responsible for only 20 pupils, something which allows him or her to provide better quality teaching, differentiated attention to each of his or her pupils and their families, thus, a more comprehensive education. They have television sets, VCRs and computer labs at their disposal. These are incredibly efficient instruments that, used as teaching tools, greatly expand our children's knowledge. Not one child in Cuba is without access to these modern tools. Schools with no electricity are equipped today with solar panels that power computers, televisions and VCRs. Computer science has begun to be taught at pre-school level. 12, 958 teachers of basic computer science trained in intensive courses and assigned to teach in our classrooms and all primary school teachers were given specially designed courses in the subject. Children with special educational needs have also been taught using these new and modern educational tools. The first School for Autistic Children, a group that has been overlooked in nearly every country in the world, was inaugurated two years ago. Today, children begin to study English through audio-visual courses from the third grade on. They learn to play chess at school and receive cultural and artistic instruction from the first 3, 271 art instructors who graduated this past October 20. A similar or greater number of instructors shall graduate every year and work not only in the educational sector but also in cultural and social institutions in the community. We have improved meals in schools that have a school lunch program; these are now the immense majority of those that need this program. Systematic attention is accorded to all children found to have nutritional situations when the first program designed to weigh and measure all children aged 15 and under was conducted in 2001. Recently, a comprehensive study of the entire infant population was completed Aspects such as nutritional condition, schooling, family and living environment, which were measured in the study, are now being properly addressed. All of these transformations have allowed us to implement an authentic full-day study program and have made it possible for our children in primary school to learn 2.2 times more Mathematics and 1.5 times more Spanish than they did four years ago. These figures should grow as our educational system continues to develop as planned. Opportunities for learning and for physical and intellectual development are equal for all children, regardless of where they live, skin color or social background. The extraordinary changes that are taking place in primary school education have been accomplished with few resources cleverly used, following concepts of equality and justice and, above all, with a view to offering the same opportunities to all children throughout the country. We shall continue to work just as intensely toward improving and developing the other levels of education. Radical transformations have also been made to junior high schools by implementing a different educational model for children and adolescents in seventh, eighth and ninth grades -which are facing a grave crisis in other countries. This model breaks with previous educational concepts. At this school level there is now a general all-round teacher who is responsible for 15 students and who teaches all subjects except English and Physical Education. He or she is a tutor, an educator, a mentor for each student; this gets rid of the excessive number of teachers for the various subjects under which system it was impossible to integrate the different branches of knowledge and the educational influences needed at this decisive stage of life. Thanks to this step, the school's relationship with the family has improved qualitatively which means they can cooperate more extensively and changes have even operated in the way many parents behave towards and treat their children. Mathematics, Spanish, History, English and Physics classes are taught using videos whose contents have been designed by the most prestigious educational specialists in the country. This gives considerable reinforcement to the efforts made by the teachers and increases the quality and depth of the classes taught. The frequency of Mathematics, Computing, Spanish and History classes has been raised, which means the students receive more information and improve their knowledge of these subjects. The new art instructors are also working in our junior high schools, promoting culture and bringing the best of Cuba and the world's traditions to our adolescents. There is a program to provide free school snacks or lunch to junior high school students. This allows them to receive the nourishment needed to sit through the double session of classes and means the students of this level are safer because they don't have to leave the school grounds until the end of the school day. On December 2, 2004, 307,339 students and 38,246 workers in 591 urban junior high schools were receiving free school snacks. The students of 83 junior high schools still have to join the program; they will be receiving the benefits from this program in the first three months of next year. The Behavior School also has social workers working with the students. These are responsible for organizing the way society can act to modify the causes and conditions from which social disadvantage and behavioral problems arise. These far reaching transformations have also targeted our young people, from the age of 16 on. We founded the social worker schools from which more than 21,485 youths have already graduated. These constitute a veritable detachment of social support and solidarity that is now working with almost all of Cuba's People's Councils. Every year another 7,000 youths are trained using new educational concepts, and not only in the schools designed for that purpose but also in their own municipalities, in what we call Home-Schools, using television, videos, and computers under the guidance of experienced teachers and in direct contact with the social conditions in their own communities. When they graduate, all have direct access to many university degree programs related to their multifaceted activity. We set up the secondary school upgrading courses for young people aged 17 to 30 who, once they had completed ninth grade, which is now the general level for these ages, ceased to either study or work. This has allowed more than 150,000 youths to study in these secondary school upgrading programs and receive an income appropriate to their age and needs. The results obtained have meant that 48,406 graduates from these courses have already enrolled in various university programs -- including that of medical science-- and achieved very positive results. Throughout the Battle of Ideas we have made an old dream come true: the universalization of higher education, thus making universities accessible to all the young people who graduate from the Revolution's programs and to workers in general. This program has given unheard of opportunities to young people and adults who were not previously able to attend higher education institutes but who now can join in the revolutionary aim of having all citizens, regardless of the work they do, obtain a comprehensive education. The result of these programs is that the country today has the highest number of students registered in higher education than at any other time in its history: 380,000 students, of whom 233, 011 are being educated in the 938 university chapters that already exist in the country's 169 municipalities. The 65,427 teachers and tutors working in this universalization program, who have given a committed, determined response to this call of the Revolution, are part of more than 700,000 professionals educated by the Revolution who work in Cuba, despite the constant brain drain which victimizes Third World countries. Our aspiration of having higher education centers for excellence resulted in the creation of the University of Information Sciences, the first institution of this kind to be created during the Battle of Ideas. Just two years and three months after it was opened, more than 6,000 youths from every municipality in the country study in this already prestigious university where novel concepts and revolutionary working methods are used; these have obtained significant achievements in teaching and productive activity in a very short space of time. The spirit and concepts applied in the University of Information Sciences are those we must also use in those polytechnics where this subject is taught. They are educating almost 40,000 mid-level information science technicians throughout the country, thus securing Cuba's future development --something that is only possible thanks to the vast human capital created by the Revolution over more than four decades. This recently approved project for Information Science Polytechnics is only the latest of the Battle of Ideas' programs for the 2000- 2004 period. We shall allocate the necessary material resources and equipment to it. The ministry of Education, the ministry of Information Sciences and Communication and the Young Communist League have already received the relevant instructions. The Battle of Ideas has done much for the Cuban family, for the safety and the mental and physical development of their children, without exceptions. With regards to such an important field as healthcare, these families benefit from the large amounts of money invested in our 444 polyclinics, 107 of which have been completely remodeled and 34 of which are in the process of being remodeled. On top of this, reconstruction and modernization work is going on in 27 hospitals, as part of a program that will affect all of them equally and 217 physiotherapy wards are being opened in the polyclinics, all of which will offer this service by the end of next year. 24 new facilities offering hemodialysis have been opened, as have 88 offering optician services and 118 intensive therapy centers in those municipalities which, because they have no surgical hospitals, did not have this extremely valuable medical resource which has already saved thousands of lives to date. The program of technical refurbishment now in full swing will bring benefits to all of the primary and secondary services we have and will have the added benefit of bringing the most important and highest quality medical services closer to the population's homes and places of residence. In the same token, 1905 television rooms have been opened in isolated rural settlements having no electricity, thus providing access to information, recreation and to educational television programs to more than half a million Cubans who live in those areas and who were the only ones who still did not have these services. Extending the Youth Clubs (Joven Club) to 300 facilities has allowed 436,753 Cubans to learn about computing, that is, since the beginning of April 2001, when the new Youth Clubs were opened thus raising the number of computers allocated to 3,000. This excellent program is being expanded with another 100 additional clubs already completed, the aim being to double the existing 300 facilities. The Book Fairs have turned into a huge festivity for the Cuban family. In 2002, they spread from their traditional home in Havana to 19 other Cuban cities and this year they will extend to 34. Nine and a half million people visited the last three Fairs, with more than 15 million books on sale. The Family Library made the best of Cuban and world literature available to our people at reasonable prices. 100,000 copies of 25 titles were produced, and a second collection is ready to go to print. Two new, modern, high capacity printers have been bought, one of which is working to full capacity and the other is being installed. Resources have been allocated to repair and modernize all the equipment in the National Print Works. The University for All, broadcast on television, which went on air on October 2, 2000 has become the biggest university in the country, the one offering the widest variety of subjects. 43 courses with 1,721 content hours have been taught using this resource. Six courses are being broadcast now. 775 professors, of whom 265 are PhDs and 134 have Master's degrees, have taught courses. The programs developed to turn prisons into schools have had a marked impact on the inmates' families by helping to strengthen the bonds between the young offenders and their relatives. Studies made of people with disabilities have made it possible to resolve some of the crises in the care offered to them and their families. They have allowed us to warn the families about hereditary diseases and have made it possible for 6,052 mothers to devote themselves full-time to looking after their children with serious disabilities since they receive a salary for doing so. A total of 366,864 people with physical and motor, sensory, organic and other disabilities, including mental disabilities were studied. More than 30, 000 science professionals and management and support staff took part in the nation-wide study. On August 5, 2003 the New National Center for Genetic Medicine was established. As a result of this huge effort to attain the highest possible level of justice for our people and to provide full equality of opportunities for all, more than 380,000 jobs have been created, the outcome of the Revolution's Programs, most of which basically benefit the youths. According to information received from the ministry of Labor, by the end of this year unemployment had fallen to less than 2%, something that is absolutely impossible in any industrialized capitalist country. In only three years, more than 44,979 new primary and junior high school teachers have been trained. This is equal to eleven years output from the teacher training institutes' regular day courses between 1988 and 2000. As I already said, we have 21,485 social workers. In 2000, when the Battle of Ideas began, Social Security had only 795 social workers in all of Cuba. As of November 20, 5,810 building, rebuilding or expansion public works had been completed; 1,732 of these were for education, 1, 537 for health, 32 for major cultural institutions, including major rebuilding and expansion work on the Higher Institute of Art, and 2,508 for other of the Revolution's programs. 913 schools have sustained capital repairs while 32 new schools have been built. Our country has today 5,270 new classrooms. Over 25 million cassettes have been produced in about a year and a half and another new cassette factory is under construction. The agreements we have just signed with China mean we will be able to acquire 100,000 computers annually; these will be used mainly for the education of children, young people and adults and for retraining our country's growing number of university graduate technicians and professionals. The day will also come when computers will be widely used to dialogue with the world. When one takes into account this country's political education, the growing efforts to give Cubans a good command of English and other languages, there is no other people which has more things to give information about nor more training to be able to do so in a better way. The first million television sets we bought from the People's Republic of China has meant that 827,322 families in Cuba have a top quality 21-inch color television which uses 20 watts less electricity than a LG color television and 120 watts less than a Soviet black and white television. This has had a profound and widespread impact on our people's level of culture and information and on its recreational opportunities. The rest of the television sets were given to education, health and other of the country's social programs; 80,000 of them were used for international cooperation, and we will be getting another 300,000 21-inch television sets from China. Several thousand 29-inch televisions, which are now being used in education, are not from China. Our educational system has 109,117 television sets and 40,858 VCRs in the classrooms; these have become excellent teaching aids. Two new educational channels have been established, which combined with Cubavision and Tele Rebelde broadcast 394 hours of educational programming weekly. This is 62.7% of the total hours broadcast by Cuban television. 247 of these hours are devoted to courses on the curricula. If at the last YCL Congress we expressed our concern about the low output of books and other publications for our children and youths, we can today announce that 457, 840,862 copies of books, newsprint editions, pamphlets and other printed material have been produced for our various programs and projects. These include: 41, 025, 778 books, newsprint editions, and pamphlets for educational programs. 15, 979, 198 books for the Book Fairs. 35,371,157 newsprint transcripts of Round Tables and Open Forums. 15,905,758 newsprint study materials for University for All. In 1999, there were only eight visual art schools in the country. Today this type of education has spread to all the provinces, with visual art schools in 17 cities. The registration in the new National Ballet School that can take 300 students has been extended to students from all provinces. Today, 4,021 students from all of the capital's municipalities attend vocational workshops given in the National Ballet School twice a week. Other dance schools offer similar courses. 6,789 public and school libraries have received encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases and other books with which they have renovated their bibliographic stock. 2,365,234 children and youths have been given a book as a prize in their graduation ceremonies. About 10,900,000 Cubans have taken part in the 161 Open Forums that have taken place. 11, 800,000 people have joined in the 18 marches we have had. 1,030 Round Tables have been aired to date. These have become a kind of political university offering up-to-the-minute relevant information and profound and truthful analyses of the empire's crude lies and perfidious aggression against our people, while also discussing important aspects of international politics, economics, culture, sciences, sports and other issues of interest. Since the Battle of Ideas is --as I once said-- "the battle of humanism against dehumanization, the battle of brotherhood and sisterhood against the most blatant form of selfishness [.] the battle of justice against the most brutal form of injustice, the battle for our people and the battle for other peoples" we at this time have 23,413 doctors and health technicians working on humane missions of solidarity in 66 countries. A very large number of them are working in the poorest neighborhoods in Sim?n Bol?var's great homeland, which is at this moment in the midst of revolutionary changes under the leadership of an amazing new political leader, a follower of Bolivar and Marti, a beloved friend of Cuba, Hugo Ch?vez Fr?as. The impact of the Battle of Ideas, its principles and work methods have not only transformed our educational system, and the lives of our people, but have also strengthened and increased the prestige of the Young Communist League, which, at the moment this Congress is taking place, has the highest number of YCL members in the last decade: 557,298, which is 104,692 more than at the 7th Congress. Today our youth organization has 49,054 local chapters, 8,756 more than in 1998. If we criticized the YCL at the last Party Congress for its weaknesses in grooming members for our vanguard party, we are today happy to see that the attention they gave to this crucial matter and the growing strength of the organization itself have resulted in the YCL supplying the Party with 63 of every 100 members who have come to their 30th birthday. So, in total, if we count those young members who are under 30 who were allowed to join under a special plan, the YCL has strengthened the Party with 133,283 new members. This is their concrete response to the fair criticisms they received. Those chiefly responsible for these results have been the young cadre. This battle has demanded that they increase their capacity for action and their readiness and has obliged them to make a qualitative change in their working methods so that they may devote their attention to the internal functioning and daily work of the YCL and may also take up the new tasks that stem from the Revolution's programs. The organization's experience, perseverance and its achievements have meant that it has been able to provide the Party with more cadres. In the last two years, 215 YCL cadres have become professional Party workers. What we have achieved to date is the result of our people's and our wonderful youths' heroic efforts. We still have a lot left to do. You know where the old and new problems are. We must ensure that the teachers working in our classrooms today stay working there, we must add to their reserves, jealously guard the young human resources we have trained over the last few years, paying special attention to their professionalism and up-grading. We must continue to analyze the inescapable changes that our technical professional and senior high school education must undergo; we must improve the way higher education is made accessible to all and we must make sure that all of the country's universities move forward from this idea towards the academic and revolutionary excellence that the country demands from its university students and professors. We must do further more intensive political work with all of our health workers, so that the quality of the services offered to the public are in step with the investments in buildings and technology made in this sector and with the prestige that Cuban medicine has obtained by sending its doctors and technicians to other parts of the world in solidarity. We have to continue with the task of promoting healthy, enlightened and useful recreational opportunities for our young people, which make use of all the opportunities and resources we have today thanks to the Revolution's programs. We will have to continue to wage our hard-fought battle against corruption, social indiscipline, and any surge in drug use. The highest possible integration of all the institutions involved in public broadcasting must take place. These are the institutions, which can and must be completely at the service of knowledge, culture, recreation, and the most dearly held values and interests of our people. There is still a lot to repair, build and improve in our social institutions. We have proof that this is possible. As I once said, "perhaps the most useful of our modest efforts in the struggle for a better world will be to demonstrate how much can be done with so little when all of society's human and material resources are placed at the service of the people". The hard currency cost of the Battle of Ideas, including, the buildings, materials of all kinds, the thousands of pieces of top quality, standardized medical, dental and optician's equipment, the computers and videos, including payments made for the credit to buy televisions for the population and for institutions and other similar payments is less that 2% of the country's total hard currency expenditure in the last five years. To this we must add, as an example of the best use of scarce resources, that the cost of the million Chinese television sets is almost completely offset by the saving in electricity that will be achieved in the 8 years needed to repay the credit obtained. When we look back on these heroic years of intense labor and not a few challenges, we cannot help but feel proud of our youth, of its values, of its caliber, of its mettle. Men like Juan Miguel, who has discharged his duties as a father and a patriot in such an exemplary manner, was a member of the YCL. Our five heroes imprisoned by the empire were members of the YCL, they who are the victims of vengeance and hate, who are suffering through cruel and unjust prison terms in American jails without letting anyone stain their honor, break their integrity and loyalty to the Revolution and to our people. They are symbols and serve as inspiration to those who will change the world. We shall not rest for a second until justice be done and they are returned to our country. Sooner or later, with support from the rest of the world, we shall win that battle, too! The information I have given in these remarks which are my reply to your invitation may astound many people, some might not even believe them, others will totally ignore them. The empire will be furious and announce with incredible cynicism that Cuba must be liberated and democracy brought to this enslaved people and what is more, teach it to read and write, as they announce in their `program for the transition to capitalism'. The masses, still partially deceived by the hail of lies and invectives coming from the powerful imperialist media, will believe us more and more, as they begin to awaken to what is in store for them and to understand the huge difference between our system and the one advocated by the empire. Capitalism has lost any humanist essence; it lives from waste and to waste; it cannot escape from that congenital, incurable disease. Suffice it to say that Cuba has 450 doctors in Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere; the industrialized countries cannot send even 50, for they have finance capital but lack human capital. Neither aggression nor blockade, terrorist acts or the disintegration of the socialist block, unipolar dominion over the world or the extreme right's rise to power in the United States which we, in 1998, warned was possible and in fact likely, have been able to break our heroic people's spirit of struggle. We have known true independence and real freedom. We shall never resign ourselves to living without them! We are willing to pay the necessary price of which Mart? spoke. We shall continue to create and to struggle. No one now will ever be strong enough to push back into the bottle the genie of a people which has escaped for ever from plunder, humiliation and ignominy. As Camilo Cienfuegos, that extraordinary fighter who is there with Mella and Che on the Cuban YCL badge and who was only 27 when he died, said in his last speech on October 26, 1959: "We shall kneel down once and we shall bow our heads once, and that will be on the day when we reach the land that watches over 20,000 Cubans and say to them, `Brothers and sisters, the Revolution is complete, your blood was not shed in vain'". Long ago, the Cuban people said Homeland or Death! And it will carry on its Battle of Ideas to its logical conclusion. Long live the people that have faced up honorably to the most powerful empire ever to exist! Eternal life to the example the Cuban youths are setting for the world today! Long live socialism forever! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:12:13 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:12:13 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: I-Team: Illegal Strip Searches at Reagan National? Message-ID: >From ABC 7 News: I-Team: Illegal Strip Searches at Reagan National? Reporter: Melinda Mayo Posted: November 24, 2004 5:55 PM EST URL: http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1104/190100.html -WJLA Script- Anchor: NEW ALLEGATIONS TONIGHT ABOUT ILLEGAL STRIP SEARCHES TAKING PLACE INSIDE REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT. ON MONDAY, THE I-TEAM UNCOVERED CHARGES OF SERIOUS SECURITY LAPSES THERE AND NOW, WE'RE HEARING ABOUT SOME DISTURBING INCIDENTS RELATED TO PASSENGER SCREENING. ANDREA MCCARREN JOINS US WITH MORE ON THE STORY. Andrea McCarren on-set: IN TSA JARGON, THEY'RE CALLED PRIVATE SCREENINGS. THAT'S WHEN A PASSENGER WHO SETS OFF AN ALARM IS TAKEN TO ANOTHER LOCATION AND CHECKED MORE THOROUGHLY FOR WEAPONS OR EXPLOSIVES. BUT WE'VE NOW LEARNED ABOUT SOME PRIVATE SCREENINGS THAT APPARENTLY WENT TOO FAR. Story: TSA Employee: "I couldn't imagine my sister or my mother going through that process. I was so upset." AGAIN AND AGAIN, TSA EMPLOYEES AT REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT -INCLUDING SUPERVISORS-TOLD US THAT PASSENGERS WERE ASKED TO REMOVE THEIR CLOTHING AND EXPOSE THEIR PRIVATE PARTS DURING SECURITY SCREENINGS.A CLEAR VIOLATION OF TSA'S OWN INTERNAL GUIDELINES. OBTAINED BY THE I-TEAM. TSA Employee: "The look on their face would almost give you the sense that they felt like they were in a sense being raped. In a sense, being victimized and to a certain extent, they were. " TSA Employee: "That really incensed me that someone felt that they could just put on some gloves and they could just violate someone to that degree." TSA Employee: "They actually had the passenger remove the clothing that covered the sensitive area and perform a duck walk to see if something would fall out." IN FACT, SOME OF THOSE SO-CALLED PRIVATE SCREENINGS WERE ALLEGEDLY CONDUCTED IN A VERY PUBLIC PLACE: THIS STAIRWELL.ACCESSIBLE TO OTHER PASSENGERS AND AIRPORT EMPLOYEES. TSA Employee: "The private screenings were conducted right in that stairwell" Andrea McCarren: Isn't that an inappropriate place to be searched? TSA Employee: "That's a very inappropriate place to be searched." TSA EMPLOYEES SAY AFTER THEY COMPLAINED, THE SCREENINGS WERE MOVED INTO THIS MANAGERS' OFFICE. WHERE THEY ALLEGE, UNSUSPECTING PASSENGERS WERE EITHER VIDEOTAPED OR MONITORED ON CLOSED CIRCUIT TELEVISION. TSA Employee: I couldn't believe it! I said is that a camera up there? And they said yeah. Andrea McCarren: Do you think the women being strip searched had any idea they were being videotaped? TSA Employee: Absolutely not A TSA OFFICIAL INSISTS THE CAMERA WAS COVERED UP AND EVEN DEACTIVATED. A FACT SEVERAL EMPLOYEES DISPUTE. Andrea McCarren: You saw a light go on in that camera? TSA Employee: "Right." SOME TSA EMPLOYEES ALSO ALLEGE THAT THE PASSENGERS SELECTED FOR ADDITIONAL SCREENING WERE OFTEN DETERMINED WELL BEFORE THEY REACHED THE MAGNETOMETERS. Andrea McCarren: "You're saying a female passenger would be stopped for additional screening not because she set off an alarm but because of her breast size?" TSA Employee: "Absolutely, Yes" IN FACT, SHE SAYS SOME SCREENERS EVEN -INTENTIONALLY- SET OFF MAGNETOMETERS BY KICKING THEM. TSA Employee: "It leaves supervisors in a very bad spot because if the manager's enjoying it, then how are you going to tell him to stop them from doing it?" Mark Hatfield, TSA Spokesman: "The rules are non-negotiable and they apply to everybody." TSA SPOKESMAN MARK HATFIELD. Mark Hatfield, TSA Spokesman: "In terms of a violation or a criminal act, something that violates civil rights or the privacy of an individual, there's zero tolerance for that. And we'll get to the bottom of that and root out the individuals." SOME FEMALE PASSENGERS FEAR IT'S ALL PART OF A GROWING TREND TOWARD MORE AGGRESSIVE SCREENING. Woman #1: "Sometimes they overdo it. I've been almost stripped, practically." Woman #2: "You're sort of treated like a criminal." Woman #3: "I was like, whoah! You can't do that and the supervisor who I had been objecting to was standing right there and he said yes, we can." TSA Employee: "It's very upsetting to see this happen and there are a lot of screeners that took his job thinking that they could do something good and many of them have quit and many of them are talking about quitting now." Andrea McCarren on-set: SO, WHO INVESTIGATES COMPLAINTS ABOUT TSA SCREENINGS? WELL, THE TSA DOES! THROUGH THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, WE'VE REQUESTED ALL OF THE PASSENGER COMPLAINTS ABOUT SCREENINGS AT NATIONAL AIRPORT AND WILL REPORT BACK ONCE WE HAVE THAT INFORMATION. REPORTING LIVE FOR THE I-TEAM, ANDREA MCCARREN, ABC7 NEWS TM & ?2004 WJLA/NewsChannel 8, a division of Allbritton Communications Company -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: wjla_iteam_0804.gif Type: image/gif Size: 7884 bytes Desc: not available URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:14:26 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:14:26 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] 148 unarmed Palestinians killed in West Bank in 2004: Israeli army Message-ID: It's not right no matter which side does it... ============== 148 unarmed Palestinians killed in West Bank in 2004: Israeli army FROM: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-12/09/content_2310837.htm JERUSALEM, Dec. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- The Israeli army said on Wednesday that a total of 148 unarmed Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank this year. A senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer released the figure at a press briefing at the army headquarters near the West Bankcity of Ramallah. "148 civilians and 119 terrorists have been killed in 2004," Israel Radio quoted the officer as saying, adding at least 29 innocent Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops by mistake in the West Bank since January. The Israeli military has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks over allegations of use of excessive and improper force in its operations against Palestinians. An Israeli military spokesman was quoted by media reports as recognizing that many of the Palestinian civilians killed were militants "involved in the preparation of attacks but not actually armed." Israeli army chief of staff General Moshe Yaalon said Tuesday that 70 percent of all victims of the intifada (uprising) were civilians and warned the army against losing its "moral values". According to media reports, some 4,600 people, including more than 3,500 Palestinians and nearly 1,000 Israelis, have been killed since the start of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000. Enditem -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:15:42 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:15:42 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: The Big Picture Message-ID: The Big Picture - 2004 Update By Joel Skousen World Affairs Brief Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as the World Affairs Brief. http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com 12-4-4 THE BIG PICTURE - 2004 update Once a year, I take time out from my normal news analysis to update World Affairs Brief subscribers regarding the "big picture" of events on earth: the current status of the world, how my forecasted projections concerning the threats to liberty are progressing, and where we are now on the time line relative to those projections. The base document upon which this update is based, "Strategic Threats of the Coming Decade," is found at the following link: http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/keytopics/threats.html. Overview: There are currently three major centers of power in the world: Russia, China, and the West (US/UK and the EU). All other nations are subservient to or allied with one or more of the "Big 3" powers. Each of the three power centers is separately conspiring to control the world, though their respective citizens are generally ignorant of this fact. Currently, Russia and China are allied in a deadly pact to strike the West as soon as the best opportunity presents itself. Although each knows it will have to tangle with the other eventually, both consider the West to be the primary target for now. The West, led by the US, is still the leader in high-technology military weapons, a superiority which rests on somewhat limited quantities of expensive smart weapons (a point of vulnerability not lost on our enemies). China has huge advantages in terms of potential military manpower, while Russia has overwhelming superiority in terms of numbers of conventional weapons, and are only a little bit behind the West in availability of high tech weapons"thanks to continued espionage and strategic technology transfers facilitated by both Republican and Democratic administrations in the US. Additionally, despite feigning weakness, Russia has at least a 5 to 1 advantage over the West in terms of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, including missile delivery systems. This latter advantage is critical because, with America,s suicidal doctrine to absorb a nuclear first strike (PDD-60) in effect (Bush has not rescinded it), combined with America,s lack of any viable anti-ballistic missile system, it means that Russia has the capability to destroy 90% of the entire US military machine in a single day. Russia and China are preparing for war against the West as we speak, and certain leaders in the US are simultaneously setting America up for a fall, incredible as that may appear. In brief, here is what each power center has in mind, according to my current analysis. Competing Strategies: Russia's strategy is to strike the US with a massive pre-emptive nuclear missile attack, targeting primarily military and communication sites. Even though civilian centers will not be primary targets, about 20-30% of Americans (those who are living in close proximity or downwind of the attacks) will be casualties. Russia may also include in that first strike all British and French missile sites just to ensure Russia will be free from missile retaliation, except a limited retaliation by what few submarines would still be operational and at sea when the strike occurs. Russian military sites, including whole factories and munitions depots (such as Yamantau Mountain), are being constructed deep underground to survive the effects of Western submarine-launched missiles, which cannot penetrate Russia,s main bunker cities. Russia has also prepared to shelter in underground bunkers in and around cities about a fourth of its critical labor and military personnel. The purpose of the Russian pre-emptive strike will be to effectively disarm the West in a single blow, while leaving most of the economic and industrial capacity of Europe intact. The US economy, due to extensive fallout, will be out of commission for as long as two years. Russia is hoping to blackmail the surviving West into submission without the need for further attack. Acting as a surrogate and ally of Russia, China's first objective will be to subdue the Far East, with help from North Korea, using a strategy similar to that of the Russians. First, a barrage of medium range missiles will be launched to take out a significant portion of the military bases in Hawaii, Taiwan, S. Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and perhaps Australia and New Zealand to force a quick capitulation. China will then move to occupy the island nations of the Pacific, militarily and administratively. Occupation of these areas will be relatively easy for China since these nations are already within its geographical range of control. In contrast, I still do not believe Russia intends to occupy the US. America is too far away and its citizens still have too many private arms. If there is any attempt at occupation of the US, it will be by Latin American Marxist allies of Russia and China - a huge coalition that is growing with each new election of a Marxist or pro-Marxist government in the region. The US and British strategy is to secretly facilitate Russia's attack and use the ensuing war to establish a global system of "Third Way" socialist control, ostensibly to "save" their own terrorized people from the horrors of war. To do this, Western globalist leaders have been following a carefully crafted plan to create conflicts and manipulate the public's reaction to those conflicts in order to assure a controlled, socialist outcome in each case. The strategy includes the following elements: 1) Secretly assist Communist and socialist revolutions around the world"to soften up nations and get them used to living under tyranny and socialism. This has been going on since before 1917, but most of the covert assistance to Communism occurred during the post WWII period through 1990. Historically, the list of revolutionary groups which have benefited from Western assistance is rather long. US agents, through money, arms, and/or media support, assisted in the overthrow of Russia, China, Cuba, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iran, Rhodesia, South Africa and many more"knowingly leaving each nation in the hands of Communist revolutionaries. In other developing nations which have not experienced a direct revolutionary overthrow by leftist factions, the State Department and/or CIA have secretly given political and financial assistance to leftist candidates for office, and have actively opposed free-market, pro-US candidates"all done with US taxpayer funding from the grossly misnamed "Endowment for Democracy." 2) Assist Russia, China, and their allies with technology transfers to help them build weapons of mass destruction (all the while claiming to be "concerned" about such developments). After Russia gained what they could through espionage, FDR gave Russia the remainder of the A-bomb plans plus the initial enriched uranium to develop their own atomic bomb. This same traitorous duplicity in our globalist American leaders has continued, involving both Republican and Democratic administrations. 3) Assist China and Russia financially with open policies of free trade with the West as well as with huge amounts of direct aid to make sure these predator nations, despite their insolvent socialist economies, have plenty of money to divert into ongoing weapons projects. 4) Look the other way while Russia and China blatantly cheat on arms agreements, and secretly prepare for war. 5) Weaken and disarm the US military through severe downsizing of all services, and direct dismantling of potent nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons. 6) Promote an internationally controlled form of "Free Trade" so as to boost the world,s enthusiasm for global governance and control, using the economic benefits of trade as bait. 7) Antagonize the non-Western world so as to lend justification for Russia,s and China,s future retaliation taking down the "bully of the West." Examples of this intentional and ongoing antagonization include Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And, most significantly: 8) Allow the Russian pre-emptive attack on the US to occur undefended, except for a few puny ABM missiles that will do little good against an overwhelming missile barrage. (PDD-60 instructs our military to essentially absorb a nuclear first strike and retaliate afterward"as if that would be possible.) The attack, as I have theorized in previous briefs, will likely occur after a suitable trigger event occurs either in the Middle East or centering around Taiwan or Korea. Following the devastating nuclear strike, Western leaders will come out of their bunkers and feign being shocked ("The Russians and Chinese deceived us!"), then immediately call for a worldwide patriotic war against the "new" evil empire, in the name of God, Country, and the Constitution"though they have no real intention to allow national sovereignty to be re-established. They will rally US and European survivors NOT to submit to Russian blackmail, but to fight back and win. American and European survivors will willingly submit to any new draconian controls suggested by their leaders, as has been well proven in the aftermath of the supposed al Qaeda terrorist attacks. Even pacifist Europe will join in the fight, as no one wants to live under Russian rule. Hence WWIII will begin. How, you may ask, do these globalist leaders expect to win a world war after absorbing a nuclear first strike? Good question. Even our spineless, yes-men military leaders are quietly asking themselves this question - though they won't go public with their concerns. Yet there are several reasons to believe the West stands a fair chance at claiming victory. First, US conspirators in this evil plan, as well as their Russian antagonists, know that nuclear warfare is quite survivable. There will be no nuclear winter, even in America, the prime target. There will be famine for a couple of years, at least, and a great deal of social unrest. It will be a horrible ordeal, but at least half of America will survive it"and all will rue the day they failed to heed the survivalists, "extremist" calls for private fallout protection. Indeed, the surviving half in America will be very sick for a long while and wish they were dead, if they are caught unprepared. To exacerbate matters, the medical system will be in shambles because no preparations have been made in the US to protect medical personnel from fallout. But the newly empowered UN will emerge from the attacks as an even stronger global entity, pulling from those areas in the Western world that have not been hit and marshaling those forces while America recovers. Even when recovery is achieved, however, America will no longer be the global powerhouse it has historically been. Subservient to a stronger UN and an emerging New World Order, America will in the future only be a feudal nation harnessed for the global good. It will never again be allowed to dictate its own destiny. Second, the US has, I believe, been preparing and stockpiling an array of secret black budget weapons, which will help tip the balance back to the West,s favor. Certainly, there is ample historical precedence for the existence of massive secret weapons projects in the US, and indeed, a few defectors have leaked information about these underground facilities and stockpiles. It is hard, if not impossible, to corroborate their reports, due to the threats leakers face, but I think enough of the reports are credible to confirm my suspicions that, more than ever, black budgets rule the defense industry. Third, early in the war, the US will play the "China card," inducing China to switch sides and attack Russia,s rear. Since China knows it will eventually have to eliminate the Russian competition, it will have ample motivation to attack Russia,s rear at this point, when it can count on the West to help. With a war on two fronts, Russia will eventually be subdued. Like Russia in WWII, China will receive billions in aid and assistance from the West in return for joining in this "alliance," and will then emerge as the sole competitor with the West after the War. Fourth, globalist leaders are prepared to survive a pre-emptive Russian strike. Multiple nuclear bunkers, for select government leaders only, have been constructed in the US, indicating not only an intent on the part of these globalist leaders to survive a large-scale nuclear attack, but also the existence of an early-warning system, which will allow leaders time to take shelter. They will know when the attack is to take place. They have tracked Russian and Chinese war preparations, deceptions, and cheating for decades (all the while covering up for these nations, violations of international arms treaties). I believe they also have sufficient human and electronic intelligence assets in Russia to detect when this launch will occur"but, as in Pearl Harbor, they will not warn the American people. Motives: The larger question, of course, is why would Western leaders want to induce another world war, and why cover for Russia,s war preparations and hide that nation,s intent from the American people? The answer lies in the fact that globalist leaders can use the crisis nature of a world war to further establish global control. Thus it is to the advantage of those who are involved in a conspiracy to establish a one-world governmental system, to facilitate the rise of the next enemy. Citizens who feel threatened by war rally easily to cries of "unity" and "patriotism," and tend to be all too eager to relinquish precious liberties in exchange for government pledges of security. Hermann Goering, Hitler's second in command, made a telling statement about the propaganda effects of war during the Nuremberg trials. "Why, of course, the people don't want war," he said. "But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." War has always been the basic tool of globalist conspirators in forging a New World Order, as can be illustrated by a close examination of all major wars of the 20th century. This coming world war, which globalists intend to use to finally firmly establish the NWO, will accomplish three major things: 1) It will remove the US from its position as dominant military protector of the West, thereby forcing the Western nations to look to the UN as their savior. (Anglo-US globalists will wrest control of the UN leadership from its current Marxist puppets during the initial stages of the war); 2) It will foment an unthinking and uncritical form of patriotism, reminiscent of WWII, that will accede to government a vast array of new "emergency" powers which will never be fully relinquished; and 3) It will be the catalyst which will subordinate all governmental functions currently handled at the national (and perhaps state) level to the direction of the UN. In the course of this engineered global crisis, the public will become accustomed to direct UN dictates relating to the economy, travel, passport control, gun control, and other aspects of their lives. The public will also be conditioned to accept and even aid in the rounding up of "enemies of the state" or subversives (i.e., conservatives, Christian fundamentalists, and libertarians who resist the expansion of the NWO) and putting them in detention camps currently being prepared. Read more at: http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:19:50 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:19:50 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: This Revolution - sneak preview Message-ID: Guerrillas Here is the news from the GNN bunker, along with the "True Lies" tour dates for Rutgers, Vassar and Toronto: 1. As most of you know, GNN's first narrative feature film "This Revolution" (written and directed by Stephen Marshall) has been selected for the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. This week we launch the first of three sneak previews for our GNN community. Check out underground MC Immortal Technique in a confrontation with undercover police just before the RNC: http://www.gnn.tv/videos/video.php?id=29 2. Continuing on with the development of GNN 2.0, users can now publish Headlines to the front door of the site. Simply log on, go to the Headlines button on your left-hand navigation panel, click 'add' and follow the instructions. Other users can then vote for the Headline in the Yard - see on the left, above your user navigation. Please be sure to spell and grammar check your entries to ensure that they are quickly moved up to the front of the site. 3. For those Guerrillas at or near Vassar and Rutgers, you can check out Anthony Lappe and Stephen Marshall at events this week. Here are the details: Thursday Dec. 9 6:00 PM Poughkeepsie Vassar College, NY Book signing and video screening with Stephen Marshall at Taylor Hall, 124 Raymond Avenue 12604. The event is free and open to the public. For more information goto http://www.vassar.edu Sponsored by United Students Reformation Party. Friday Dec. 10 8:30 PM New Brunswick Rutgers University, NJ Book signing and video screening with Anthony Lappe at Scott Hall Room 123, 43 College Ave, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1164. The event is free and open to the public. For more information about these dates and the book, True Lies, go here: http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/article.php?id=717 4. Finally, for our Canadian G's - Stephen Marshall will be featured in at the Drake Hotel on December 15 for an intimate discussion and review of his work. Check it out: http://www.thedrakehotel.ca/happenings/2004/December/Dec_15_1077.asp We understand that the development process on the new site has been a prolonged affair and thank you for your patience while we work out the glitches. Over the next four months GNN.tv will evolve into a fully functional, user-driven, citizen muckraking operation. See you at the finish line! GNN.tv --------------------------------------------------- If you feel you have received this notice in error, or if you ever want to leave the list, just visit this URL to be instantly removed: http://gnn.tv/cgi-bin/elist/index.pl?subscribe=unsubscribe&email=deano700 at msn.com or visit the website at http://gnn.tv to remove yourself. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:18:16 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:18:16 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: In Iraq, the US eliminates those who dare to count the dead Message-ID: http://imagicke.blogspot.com/2004/12/in-iraq-us-eliminates-those-who-darehtml In Iraq, the US eliminates those who dare to count the dead You asked for my evidence, Mr Ambassador. Here it is Naomi Klein 12/04/04 "The Guardian " -- David T Johnson, Acting ambassador, US Embassy, London Dear Mr Johnson, On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating". The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested. In April, US forces laid siege to Falluja in retaliation for the gruesome killings of four Blackwater employees. The operation was a failure, with US troops eventually handing the city back to resistance forces. The reason for the withdrawal was that the siege had sparked uprisings across the country, triggered by reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed. This information came from three main sources: 1) Doctors. USA Today reported on April 11 that "Statistics and names of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the city and from Falluja general hospital". 2) Arab TV journalists. While doctors reported the numbers of dead, it was al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya that put a human face on those statistics. With unembedded camera crews in Falluja, both networks beamed footage of mutilated women and children throughout Iraq and the Arab-speaking world. 3) Clerics. The reports of high civilian casualties coming from journalists and doctors were seized upon by prominent clerics in Iraq. Many delivered fiery sermons condemning the attack, turning their congregants against US forces and igniting the uprising that forced US troops to withdraw. US authorities have denied that hundreds of civilians were killed during last April's siege, and have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For instance, an unnamed "senior American officer", speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around. Eliminating doctors The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control. The New York Times reported that "the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casual ties", noting that "this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons". The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the soldiers "stole the mobile phones" at the hospital - preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world. But this was not the worst of the attacks on health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35 patients. The Los Angeles Times reported that the manager of Falluja general hospital "had told a US general the location of the downtown makeshift medical centre" before it was hit. Whether the clinic was targeted or destroyed accidentally, the effect was the same: to eliminate many of Falluja's doctors from the war zone. As Dr Jumaili told the Independent on November 14: "There is not a single surgeon in Falluja." When fighting moved to Mosul, a similar tactic was used: on entering the city, US and Iraqi forces immediately seized control of the al-Zaharawi hospital. Eliminating journalists The images from last month's siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no cameras on the ground because it has been banned from reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated. It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city. Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave the coordinates of its location to US forces. On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel, killing Jos? Couso, of the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's family, which alleges that US forces were well aware that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that they committed a war crime. Eliminating clerics Just as doctors and journalists have been targeted, so too have many of the clerics who have spoken out forcefully against the killings in Falluja. On November 11, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, was arrested. According to Associated Press, "Al-Sumaidaei has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government does not halt the attack on Falluja". On November 19, AP reported that US and Iraqi forces stormed a prominent Sunni mosque, the Abu Hanifa, in Aadhamiya, killing three people and arresting 40, including the chief cleric - another opponent of the Falluja siege. On the same day, Fox News reported that "US troops also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian border". The report described the arrests as "retaliation for opposing the Falluja offensive". Two Shia clerics associated with Moqtada al-Sadr have also been arrested in recent weeks; according to AP, "both had spoken out against the Falluja attack". "We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks. Mr Ambassador, I believe that your government and its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses. Source: Information Clearing House -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:02:59 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:02:59 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] How Capitalism Destroys the Young Message-ID: " The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this." -Ernesto "Che" Guevara http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/12/09/unicef.report.ap/index.html Half of kids suffer war, poverty, AIDS UNICEF report blames governments for permanent damage *LONDON, England (AP) -- More than half the world's children are suffering the effects of poverty, war and HIV/AIDS, denying them a healthy and safe childhood, UNICEF's annual report said Thursday.* The United Nations children's fund report on The State of the World's Children found more than 1 billion children were growing up hungry and unhealthy, schools had become targets for warring parties and whole villages were being killed off by AIDS. A failure by governments around the world to live up to standards outlined in 1989's Convention on the Rights of the Child caused permanent damage to children and blocked progress toward human rights and economic advancement, the report said. "Too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices that actually hurt childhood," UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said. A day before the report's release, an editorial published in The Lancet, the respected British medical journal, accused Bellamy of neglecting issues of child survival while emphasizing the rights of children. "A preoccupation with rights ignores the fact that children will have no opportunity for development at all unless they survive," said the journal's editor, Richard Horton. "Child survival must sit at the core of UNICEF's advocacy and country work. Currently, and shamefully, it does not." UNICEF spokesman Alfred Ironside said Horton ignored progress made on child survival rates. "Globally child deaths have fallen by 18 percent since 1990," Ironside said in London. In his foreword to the report, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said poverty denied children dignity and endangered their lives, conflict robbed them of a secure family life and HIV/AIDS killed parents, teachers, doctors and children themselves. Compiled by UNICEF and researchers at the London School of Economics and Bristol University, the report found more than half the children in developing countries lived in poverty without access to basic goods and services. It also said: * One in six children was severely hungry. * One in seven had no access to health care. * One in five had no safe water. * One in three had no toilet or sanitation facilities at home. The report found 640 million children did not have adequate shelter; 300 million had no access to information such as TV, radio or newspapers and 140 million children, the majority of them girls, had never been to school. Poverty was not confined to developing countries, the report said, as the proportion of children living in low-income households in 11 of 15 industrialized nations rose in the past decade. More than 10 million child deaths were recorded in 2003, with an estimated 29,158 children under 5 dying from mostly preventable causes everyday. UNICEF reported conflict around the world had seriously injured or permanently disabled millions of children, while millions more endured sexual violence, trauma, hunger and disease caused by wars. Nearly half of the 3.6 million people killed in conflict during the 1990s were children and around 20 million children were forced from their homes and communities by fighting. UNICEF said almost half a million children under 15 died of AIDS in 2003, while another 630,000 children were infected with HIV. By 2003 some 2.1 million children under 15 were living with HIV/AIDS, most of whom were infected during pregnancy, birth or through breast-feeding. From 2001 to 2003, the number of children who had lost one or both parents to AIDS rose from 11.5 million to 15 million and around 80 percent of those were living in sub-Saharan Africa. The UNICEF report said the world had the capacity to reduce poverty, conflict and HIV/AIDS and improve the plight of the world's children. It said Millennium Development Goals, which aim to improve the world through human development by 2015 and were agreed to by the U.N.'s 191 member states in 2000, could be achieved at an annual cost of $40-$70 billion. In comparison, world spending on military in 2003 was $956 billion. Bellamy said the quality of a child's life depended on decisions made by the global community and the world's governments. "We must make those decisions wisely and with children's best interests in mind. If we fail to secure childhood, we fail to reach our larger, global goals for human rights and economic development," she said. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:25:00 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:25:00 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: AMERICA SOLD OUT Message-ID: AMERICA SOLD OUT http://www.newswithviews.com/Lamb/henry64.htm By Henry Lamb December 6, 2004 NewsWithViews.com For nearly 200 years, governments in America rarely bought private property, except "...for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings," as specified in the U.S. Constitution. In the last 30 years, however, all governments - federal, state, and local, - have gone on a buying spree, gobbling up land everywhere, to protect and preserve, which, incidentally, is not one of the purposes authorized by the Constitution. Why has this change in acquisition policy come about, and what are the long term consequences? The change in policy coincides with the rise of the environmental movement in the '60s and '70s. The idea that government should own and control all the land emerged in 1976 from the U.N. Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT I), that met in Vancouver, British Columbia. The conference report contained 65 pages of specific recommendations for government to acquire, or control private property. The preamble to the report says: "Land...cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole. Public control of land use is therefore indispensable...." Several of the same environmental organizations that helped shape this policy through the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, launched domestic campaigns to get government to buy, or regulate private property. The Nature Conservancy announced its program to save America's "Last Great Places," and began buying up vast stretches of private real estate, often with grants from tax payers. Other organizations promoted state and local campaigns to buy up "open space" to prevent urban sprawl. In two separate sessions of Congress, these same environmental organizations promoted legislation to set aside $3 billion each year for 18 years, expressly for the purpose of buying private property. Opponents were able to seriously weaken these efforts, but nevertheless, each year, more and more local, state, and federal tax dollars are being used to buy private property. Simultaneously, increasingly restrictive land use planning, zoning, and regulatory control laws have also been adopted by every level of government. The consequences of these efforts are now being felt across the land. In Big Sur, California for example, more than 70-percent of the land is publicly owned. The price of land has skyrocketed to the point that life-long residents have been forced to move away, and property taxes are confiscatory. Increasing property tax is one of the first consequences of excessive government ownership. The cost of government does not decrease, but the number of property owners who must pay the costs, does decrease, thereby forcing the remaining property owners to pay a higher rate, in both taxes and fees. Even more important is the long-term consequence. Currently, governments own about 42-percent of the total land area in the U.S. Land trusts own an additional, unknowable, amount of land. Fast-forward fifty years. At the current rate of "preservation," governments, and land trusts will own most of the land, and by 2100, private property will be a distant memory. In this new world, people will have to live on property that is owned by the government - or a land trust. Farmers will have to farm land that is owned by the government - or a land trust. Industry will have to operate using resources that are owned by the government - or a land trust. Get the picture? He who owns the land, controls its use - and gathers its wealth. Sadly, many people are eager to sell their land, or the use of their land through easements, to the government - or to a land trust. These buyers have no shortage of money, and can offer tax breaks that private buyers cannot. Consequently, America is being sold out. Every new land acquisition appropriation in Washington, or at the state and local level moves America closer and closer to that socialist utopia described in the 1976 U.N. document, which declares that "Public control of land use is therefore indispensable...." ? 2004 Henry Lamb - All Rights Reserved Sign Up For Free E-Mail Alerts E-Mails are used strictly for NWVs alerts, not for sale -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Henry Lamb is the founding Chairman of Sovereignty International (1996), and the founding ECO of the Environmental Conservation Organization (1988). He is publisher of eco-logic Powerhouse, a widely read on-line, and print magazine. His columns are frequently translated into Spanish and published throughout Central and South America, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. He has attended United Nations meetings around the world, is a frequent speaker at conferences and workshops across the country, and is a regular guest on dozens of talk radio programs. He has provided testimony for the U.S. Congress, as well as State Legislatures, and has served as a consultant to FOX News on U.N. affairs. For eight years, he was CEO of a national trade association for contractors, headquartered in Chicago, coming to that position from CEO of a private construction company specializing in erosion control and water management structures. His background includes teaching at the secondary school level, and serving four years as a legislative analyst for a county government in Florida. E-Mail: henry at freedom.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:29:54 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:29:54 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: WTC Leaseholder Silverstein Loses Insurance Battle Message-ID: AR Action Report Online. Reuters. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Wednesday, December 6, 2004 Developer Wins Victory in WTC Case By Gail Appleson and Paul Thomasch [Every cloud has a silver lining] NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York developer hoping to rebuild the destroyed World Trade Center on Monday won a major victory against his insurers, when a jury decided the hijacked airline attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were two separate events. The verdict in U.S. District Court in Manhattan means the site's leaseholder, Larry Silverstein, could get twice as much money from his policies with the nine of the twin towers' insurers to finance new construction. Silverstein, who signed his lease just six weeks before the towers were destroyed, said he was "thrilled" by the decision. One of the insurers, Allianz AG, said it was "disappointed" and pledged it would appeal the verdict if necessary. Silverstein has fought the insurance companies in court with the argument that he was owed $7 billion -- double the amount of his $3.5 billion policy -- on the grounds that the attacks on the towers were two separate events. Even winning this case, the most he could realize is less than $5 billion. Under this decision, he could get $2.2 billion but a separate appraisal phase is still pending that could affect that payout. Silverstein has vowed to restore 10 million square feet of office space on what has become known as Ground Zero. The verdict by the jury after 11 days of deliberations "will ensure a timely and complete rebuild of the World Trade Center," Silverstein said. "I strongly felt, and the jury agreed, that the destruction of the Twin Towers by two separate airplanes at two separate times was two separate occurrences and that these insurers have an obligation to pay their fair share to help make Lower Manhattan whole again," he said in a statement. Silverstein, one of New York's best-known developers, leased the 16-acre (6.4- hectare) complex that was destroyed by Islamic militants who flew two hijacked planes into the landmark towers. Nearly 2,800 people died and the buildings collapsed. This was the second trial resulting from Silverstein's efforts to collect double the insurance he bought from a syndicate of 23 carriers two months before the trade center was destroyed. He lost a first round in May when a jury ruled in favor of a dozen or so insurers, including the largest insurer, Swiss Re, and decided the attack by the two hijacked planes was one event, not two events as Silverstein argued. The case involves: Allianz Global Risks U.S Insurance Co., a unit of German insurer Allianz AG; Travelers Indemnity Co. and Gulf Insurance Co., now both part of St. Paul Travelers Cos. Inc.; Industrial Risk Insurers, owned by General Electric Co.; Royal Specialty, owned by British insurer Royal & SunAlliance at the time of the attack; TIG Insurance Co., a unit of Canada's Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd.; Tokio Marine and Fire Insurance Co., part of Japan's Millea Holdings Inc.; Twin City Fire Insurance Co., a unit of Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. and Zurich American Insurance Co., a unit of Swiss insurer Zurich Financial. A portion of Allianz's policy was covered by French reinsurer Scor. Allianz spokeswoman Sabia Schwarzer said the company would "press forward with a court-supported appraisal process that we believe will establish that the Silverstein parties did not sustain covered losses in excess of one policy limit." She said Allianz would "pursue all our legal remedies, including, if necessary, an appeal to the second-circuit court of appeals. WTC Leaseholder Silverstein Loses Insurance Battle Part of an $8 billion (?4.47 billion) public fund to revitalise New York's financial district is diverted to subsidise luxury housing and office blocks Sept 11, 2001: Larry Silverstein's coveted deal went down in dust. Vows to rebuild twin towers. Jewish Magnate had just signed $3.2 billion deal on WTC towers German insurance giants sue Twin Towers' Silverstein: Attack was one insurable event, not two | Click for interesting USA Today display of Sept.11 flight paths Can't Double-Dip Insurance Claim World Trade Center Developer Larry Silverstein Suffers Insurance Setback -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:29:11 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:29:11 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Graham Defense Update Dec. 7, 2004 Message-ID: Hello all, As many of you may know, December 6 was the first day of extradition hearings for John Graham. In the morning prior to court, John was feeling some stress, but was also very positive to be walking the path of truth. He was surrounded my many friends and family members, some from the local area and others who flew in to Vancouver to observe the hearings and offer their support. During this first day, John's lawyers reviewed the details of his arrest, about how he was first detained for a false accusation of harassment. While in police custody on this charge, John was allowed to contact a lawyer -- which he did. After this call however, John was then informed of a new charge relating to the US indictment for the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. The original complaint evaporated, and was replaced solely by this new charge. After being informed of the new charge, John was not allowed to contact legal counsel -- an apparent violation of his rights -- and was further interrogated. One witness which the defence called to testify was a woman employed at the local police detachment where John is required to check in on a daily basis. Not only has John checked in consistently and reliably, but he had also made friends of the staff and has sold one of his hand-crafted willow chairs to an employee. John has been crafting such items to subsidize his income, since the restrictions of house arrest make it nearly impossible to find other employment. Another development recently was the issuing of a statement by Leonard Peltier (included below) about the matter of John Graham, which is included below. More news stories and other information is being updated regularly on the John Graham Defense Committee website. Please visit often in the coming days, and take the time to mail a letter to Canada's Justice Minister Irwin Cotler. We thank you all for your continued support, and will do our best to keep you informed as these hearings continue. Matthew Lien John Graham Defense Committee www.grahamdefense.org info at grahamdefense.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- Peltier Statement on Graham Extradition Hearing December 6, 2004 Today, the U.S. government will seek John Graham's extradition to stand trial in South Dakota for the murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. I urge all of you to closely monitor the proceedings and ensure that Canadian authorities thoroughly examine all the evidence presented by the U.S. government in this case. Never forget the role of U.S. law enforcement officials in incidents that took place in the 1970s on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) tirelessly tried to prejudice the fair trial rights of American Indian Movement leaders charged with serious crimes during that turbulent period and knowingly presented false evidence to illegally obtain my extraction from Canada in December 1976. You may be thinking "That was then, this is now." Yes, many things have changed since the 1970s, but one thing has not changed, I assure you: Indians in the U.S. continue to struggle against the most dangerous, well- funded, strongest military and political organization in the world. I know the behavior of the FBI and other government officials has not changed. I fear that Graham will not receive a fair hearing in Canada or a fair trial in the U.S., anymore than I did. To the Canadian officials I say, justice cannot be achieved if a full investigation into the FBI's role in Annie Mae's death is not included in the inquiry. Annie Mae's death was the direct result of the FBI's activities on Pine Ridge. The FBI told Anna Mae that they would see her dead within a year if she did not cooperate with them, used their puppets to spread rumors that Annie Mae was an informant when she refused to cooperate, and mishandled the investigation of her death. Your investigation must consider the fact that the FBI's pathologist listed the cause of her death as exposure, despite the obvious bullet hole in her head, and Annie Mae's quick burial before a positive identification could be made. Your investigation also must include examination of FBI Special Agent David Price who was very familiar with Annie Mae's appearance and saw her body after it was first recovered, yet failed to identify her. I believe he attempted to cover up her murder. When this was no longer possible, due to the findings of an independent pathologist, the FBI issued a false press release implying that some of her own people murdered Annie Mae because they believed she was an informant. Look for and find the truth. In so doing, remember that officials of the U.S. violated your sovereignty in 1976 by deceiving your courts and using you to wrongfully convict an innocent man. Remember. And be vigilant. The First Nations of the U.S. and Canada want justice for Anna Mae, but also do not want an injustice done in her name. Leonard Peltier #89637-132 U.S. Penitentiary - Leavenworth PO Box 1000 Leavenworth, KS 66048-1000 Leonard Peltier Defense Committee PO Box 583 Lawrence, KS 66044-0583 Telephone: (1) 785/842-5774 E-mail: info at leonardpeltier.org Website: http://www.leonardpeltier.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:35:48 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:35:48 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Alleged Militia Leader Sentenced to Prison in Pa. Message-ID: "Federal prosecutors said Bilunka is the self-proclaimed leader of a militia called the Christian American Patriots Survivalists, who believe that the end of the world is near." Alleged Militia Leader Sentenced to Prison in Pa. By Associated Press December 7, 2004, 6:43 AM EST ERIE, Pa. -- An alleged militia leader who authorities claimed built a bunker on his land and stockpiled weapons for a showdown with federal agents was sentenced to nearly 3 years in prison. George Bilunka, 60, pleaded guilty in August to possessing unregistered firearms -- two homemade land mines, a modified rifle and a homemade machine gun. He also acknowledged that he and another alleged militia leader sold a copy of a Sten gun -- a British-made World War II 9 mm machine gun -- to an undercover federal agent for $300. On Monday, a federal judge sentenced Bilunka to nearly 3 years in prison, saying it could have been disastrous if someone happened upon the weapons Bilunka kept at his home. "I can't imagine anything worse," U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill Jr. said. Bilunka also was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release when he leaves prison. Federal prosecutors said Bilunka is the self-proclaimed leader of a militia called the Christian American Patriots Survivalists, who believe that the end of the world is near. Bilunka built a bunker on his land, about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh, and filled it with six months of food and supplies, federal prosecutors said. He also had about 60 legally owned guns at his home and trained his group to kill SWAT officers, prosecutors said. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-militia-machine-guns, 0,7224427.story ============================================== IF YOU'RE NOT PARANOID, THEN YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION! ============================================== To Post: ParanoidTimes at yahoogroups.com Home Page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ParanoidTimes Subscribe: ParanoidTimes-subscribe at yahoogroups.com ================================================== NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:37:12 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:37:12 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Plans To Scrap WTC Message-ID: rense.com Plans To Scrap WTC Towers For $5.6 Bn In 1989! >From Karl W. B. Schwarz kw.schwarz at worldnet.att.net 12-6-4 To Jimmy Walter Hi Jimmy, your comment completely misses the point. That is why, in 1989, they planned a $5.6 billion takedown and rebuild, it was tanked. The witness came to me...and we are protecting them. The building had the structural equivalent of osteoporosis. I am about to fund $25-50 million to THE LAWSUIT - United States Citizens v United States Government. Something major happened over the past several days. Karl -----Original Message----- From: Jimmy Walter Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 12:49 PM To: 'Karl W. B. Schwarz' Subject: RE: galvanic versus flying beams No amount of galvanic action will hurl steel beams straight out horizontally and cause the building to fall at the speed of gravity. However, it would be cause for insurance fraud! But keep trying _____ From: Karl W. B. Schwarz Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 1:22 PM To: Jimmy Walter Hello Jimmy You are going to wind up owing me the $100,000. :-) The Statute of Liberty had to be repaired due to galvanic corrosion in air. Not what most think is possible but in ocean environments, very possible. Normally galvanic corrosion is only a factor in an electrolyte such as sea water and the stern drive on the boat - having steel and aluminum components - erodes, turns brittle and snap - it fails - if electrolytic grounding plates are not installed. """The galvanic reaction between iron and copper was originally mitigated by insulating copper from the iron framework using an asbestos cloth soaked in shellac. However, the integrity and sealing property of this improvised insulator broke down over the many years of exposure to high levels of humidity normal in a marine environment. The insulating barrier became a sponge that kept the salted water present as a conductive electrolyte, forming a crude electrochemical cell as Volta had discovered a century earlier.""" In 1989 - there were plans to erect scaffolding and disassemble the WTC towers and rebuild them. Cost projection was around $5.6 billion. One of the architects shows up to work one day and the MIB's were there - had confiscated all of the plans, specs, details, etc for WTC. They even confiscated their office cubicles and had tape on the floor outlining where they went. Reason - the exterior cast aluminum WTC panels had been directly connected to the steel superstructure of the building, thus causing galvanic corrosion. In short, the "life cycle" of the WTC was not 200 - 300 years, more like 30 years or so. The exterior skin of the building - in being aluminum and connected directly to the super structure - was making the building weaker every day. That could explain why there appears to be explosives set only about every 25 floors. Once the failure started, the brittleness of welds, rivets, bolts, etc would fail much easier as the loads became progressively greater on the way down. That same process would also explain why the concrete was "powderized" over time because electrolytic processes weaken concrete too by "debonding" the Portland that causes concrete to bond in the first place. However, bear in mind that the "concrete floors" were not load bearing reinforced concrete. They were supported by what was a weakening by the day superstructure and cross members. There was a 1989 meeting and the folks at the architectural firm [Emory Roth, the project architect that took over after the design architects completed the conceptual drawings] that had their office, records, plans and specs seized - were told that the $5.6 billion "take it down, rebuild it" project was cancelled and in about "10-12 years" they would "blow it up and start over". Consider that - and consider that NYC and the US Govt could not stand the global embarrassment of being so stupid or negligent that they did not consider the effects of galvanic corrosion on the superstructure. That is structural design 101 in architectural school and why they want architects to take physics and chemistry for Christ's sake. I did. I am an architect by the way, quit practicing in 1988. http://www.npl.co.uk/ncs/docs/the_electochemistry_of_corrosion_figures.pd f http://www.npl.co.uk/ncs/docs/the_electochemistry_of_corrosion.pdf http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Aircraft/galvdefi.htm see bimetallic corrosion to get to the two links above http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Landmarks/statue-saddle.htm Guess what? The fat lady HAS SUNG. You know, the one in New York Harbor with the torch of Liberty and Freedom held high. I want to find the sick bastard that thought it would be a cute idea to have close to 3,000 in the building and use that as an excuse to go take on a whole new energy policy, war policy, and lining the pockets of just certain people. I think a Statute of Liberty hanging for that person would be most appropriate. best regards, Karl W. B. Schwarz President, Chief Executive Officer Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:41:34 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:41:34 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: U.S. admits torture used in interrogations Message-ID: http://imagicke.blogspot.com/2004/12/us-admits-torture-used-in.html U.S. admits torture used in interrogations Results become evidence, though illegal in U.S court By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN The Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Evidence gained by torture can be used by the U.S. military in deciding whether to imprison a foreigner indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an enemy combatant, the government concedes. Statements produced under torture have been inadmissible in U.S. courts for about 70 years. But the U.S. military panels reviewing the detention of 550 foreigners as enemy combatants at the U.S. naval base in Cuba are allowed to use such evidence, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle acknowledged at a U.S. District Court hearing yesterday. Some of the prisoners have filed lawsuits challenging their detention without charges for up to three years so far. At the hearing, Boyle urged District Judge Richard J. Leon to throw their cases out. Attorneys for the prisoners argued that some were held solely on evidence gained by torture, which they said violated fundamental fairness and U.S. due process standards. But Boyle argued in a similar hearing Wednesday that the detainees "have no constitutional rights enforceable in this court." Leon asked whether a detention based solely on evidence gathered by torture would be illegal, because "torture is illegal. We all know that." Boyle replied that if the military's combatant status review tribunals "determine that evidence of questionable provenance were reliable, nothing in the due process clause (of the Constitution) prohibits them from relying on it." Leon asked whether there were any restrictions on using torture-induced evidence. Boyle replied that the United States never would adopt a policy that would have barred it from acting on evidence that could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks even if the data came from questionable practices like torture by a foreign power. Source: York Dispatch * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:41:07 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:41:07 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Bomb attack on a Hydro-Quebec tower: The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security and CSIS alerted. Message-ID: A mysterious group has claimed responsibility for an apparent bomb attack on a Hydro-Quebec tower. Ctv.ca The message was received in French by news media outlets on Monday. The Initiative de Resistance Internationaliste (IRI) denounced what it describes as the "pillaging" of Quebec's resources by the United States. "An explosive device was placed under a Hydro-Quebec pylon of the Radisson-Nicolet-Des Cantons power line, near the American border. Through this operation, we are making public our refusal to be silent witnesses to the waste and pillaging of our resources at the hands of the United States empire," said the statement, translated from French by CTV's Montreal bureau. "We are also acting against Hydro-Quebec's exploitation to the benefit of private enterprises, which profit from each opportunity that imperialism provides." The group, which sent its communique to al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite TV news network, also dragged Iraq into the equation -- along with Bolivia, Colombia and the Palestinians. "We refuse to allow all the weight of resistance to fall on the noble Iraqi people, who are being massacred because they were an obstacle to the American energy hegemony, or to the Bolivian peasants courageously mobilizing against the pillage of their gas resources, even risking their lives," the note said. "We also refuse to let the Colombian and Palestinian people confront the imperial army alone, whether or not it is hidden behind a national banner." It isn't clear when the attack occurred, although a hunter on an all-terrain vehicle discovered it damage to a hydro tower Nov. 30. The IRI said authorities hid news of the attack "from the population during the chief dictator's visit" -- possibly a reference to the Nov. 30-Dec. 1 visit to Canada by U.S. President George W. Bush. If true, one student leader who was involved in anti-Bush protests said the IRI's act of sabotage went too far. "I think it makes people afraid, and I don't think that was the kind of message we meant to get out when we went to Ottawa," said Tim McSorley of the Canadian Federation of Students. The incident happened near Coaticook, which is in Quebec's Eastern Townships. A bomb squad was dispatched Friday to the site by the Quebec provincial police. Test results of materials found near the tower have not been released, so an explosive attack can't be confirmed yet. Police say they've never heard of the group before this. However, they have seized the original letter sent out to some Quebec media outlets to analyze it. They won't confirm if the details in the group's note are accurate. A Hydro-Quebec spokeswoman said the tower is part of a line that delivers electricity from James Bay to the Boston area, adding that service wasn't disrupted. "We are taking that event seriously, and we are increasing security around our strategic installations," said Marie Archambault of Hydro-Quebec. The ongoing investigation involves the provincial police, Hydro-Quebec and the Canadian counter-terrorism force. The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security and CSIS have also been alerted. Security analyst Michel Juneau-Katsuya said: "This is an act of sabotage, but we're just a step away from terrorism. And for that reason, the United States will be very interested to see how we respond to it." With a report from CTV's Jed Kahane Group claims to have bombed Quebec hydro tower http://montreal.cbc.ca Last Updated Mon, 06 Dec 2004 20:49:44 EST MONTREAL - A group opposed to the export of power from Quebec to the United States has claimed responsibility for damaging a Hydro-Qu?bec tower by setting off an explosive charge. The St-Herm?n?gilde tower, located near Coaticook in the Eastern Townships, is part of a line that carries power from James Bay to the Boston area. A hunter noticed the structure appeared to be damaged and tilting last Tuesday, but the investigation was delayed by snow that covered its base and obscured the nature of the damage. Calling itself by the initials IRI, the group sent a message to newspapers La Presse and Le Journal de Montr?al and radio station CKAC. It said its members set the charge to denounce the ''pillaging'' of Quebec's resources by the U.S. Police say they have never heard of the group, but acknowledge the tower appears to have been damaged by an explosive charge that was placed at its base. The flow of electricity was not interrupted by the explosion, Hydro-Qu?bec spokesperson Marie Archambault told Radio-Canada. The investigation is being conducted by the S?ret? du Qu?bec, Hydro-Qu?bec and the Canadian counter-terrorism force. -- Macdonald Stainsby http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green In the contradiction lies the hope. --Brecht. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:43:42 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:43:42 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] FW: Pinochet charged with homicide and kidnapping Message-ID: http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=637953 Reuters December 13, 2004 Pinochet charged with homicide and kidnapping Santiago, Chile - A Chilean judge has formally charged former dictator Agusto Pinochet with homicide and kidnapping in one of many pending cases related to human rights abuses committed during his 17-year rule. "General Pinochet was declared mentally fit to stand trial in Chile," Special Judge Juan Guzman told reporters on Monday. Pinochet's defence had tried to argue he was not mentally competent to face the charges. Pinochet, who resides in a Santiago mansion and recently turned 89, could be placed under house arrest after formal notification of the charges, which usually takes a day. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:42:19 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:42:19 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: DAVIDIAN PRISONERS INFORMATION Message-ID: FYI these people have been unjustly imprisoned.....forward this far and wide please....FREE THE DAVIDIANS PRISONERS!!!!!!!!!!!........NC > DAVIDIAN PRISONERS INFORMATION On June 4, 2000 the Supreme Court cut 25 years from 4 Davidians' sentences and 5 years from one. On September 9, 2000 Judge Walter Smith followed the Court's instructions and cut those sentences, as well as the 25 year sentence of Livingstone Fagan who had not appealed. Six will be released in Spring of 2006, one in spring of 2007. Below are the Davidian prisoners' current addresses. They enjoy hearing from supporters, although some are better correspondents than others. (Always include registration number.) Renos, Avraam Born 2/26/64, he is a British businessman and musician of Greek heritage. He joined the Davidians in 1991 and escaped the fire. He is now serving a 15 year sentence. Write: Renos Avraam #60590-080 Box 4000, Manchester, KY 40962-4000. Brad Branch Born 1/31/59, he is a Navy veteran and technician from Texas. A frequent visitor to Mount Carmel who left during the siege. He is now serving a 15 year sentence. Write: Brad Branch #60536-080 Box 4000, LIB, Manchester, KY 40962-4000. Jaime Castillo Born 6/4/68, he is a California drummer, guitarist and songwriter whojoined the Davidians in 1988 and escaped the fire. He is now serving a 15 year sentence. Write:Jaime Castillo #60594-080 Box 5000 Oakdale, LA 71463. Graeme Craddock Born 11/29/61, he is an engineer from Australia who had been at Mount Carmel for a year and escaped the fire. He is now serving a 15 year sentence. Write: Graeme Craddock #60593-080 Box 5000 Oakdale, LA 71463. Livingstone Fagan Born 5/15/59 in Jamaica, he is a social worker and masters in theology who spent most of his life in Britain. The father of two, who lost his wife and mother in the fire, exited during the siege. He is now serving a 15 year sentence. Write: Livingstone Fagan #60550-080 P. O. Box 1000 Marion, IL 62959. Paul Fatta Born 2/28/58, he is a businessman from Hawaii who joined the Davidians in the late 1980s and was outside Mount Carmel on February 28, 1993. He is serving a 15 year sentence. (The Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal, although there was no real evidence he committed the crime of conspiring to manufacture machineguns.) Write: Paul Fatta #61154-079 3600 Guard Rd Lompoc CA 93436. Kevin Whitecliff Born 6/23/61, he is a father of two from Hawaii who had been Mount Carmel for a year and left during the siege. He is now serving a 15 year sentence. Write: Kevin Whitecliff #60537-080 Atwater USP, P.O. Box 01900 Atwater, CA 95301 ===== "The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is the press coverage." -Chuck Palahniuk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:56:36 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:56:36 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Airport Security Message-ID: CBC News (Canada) Minister to investigate missing airport uniforms Last Updated Sat, 04 Dec 2004 18:42:47 EST MONTREAL - Federal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre says he wants a report explaining how security uniforms and badges disappeared from airports across the country. INDEPTH: Airport Security Jean Lapierre More than 1,000 uniforms and parts of uniforms were lost or stolen, and nearly 100 security badges went missing over a nine-month period, CBC News reported after uncovering documents from the federal agency responsible for making air travel safe. "I want a report by Monday morning on all the details of all those elements," Lapierre said when asked for his reaction on Saturday. Lapierre also gave assurances that all airports in Canada are "now double checking the identity of every employee that comes in." "Since 1 p.m. this afternoon, at the 89 airports across the country, we're double-checking the identification cards, not only when (employees) enter the premises, but also during the work shift," Lapierre told reporters. FROM DEC. 3, 2004: Canadian air security jeopardized: senator There is concern that the stolen uniforms and badges will be used to bypass security at the airports. However, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) is downplaying the security risk. "The uniform is in no way a document of entitlement if you will, or an article that allows a person to access a restricted area of an airport," said Kevin McGarr, vice-president, strategy, at CATSA. International security expert Peter St. John, who has written a book on hijackings, told CBC Newsworld Saturday that news of the missing uniforms is not surprising. "I suppose this information had to come out sooner or later, because all the standards are really being missed by this new agency," he said. Written by CBC News Online staff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:57:18 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:57:18 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Family doctor admits possession of child porn Message-ID: newsday.com Family doctor admits possession of child porn December 4, 2004, 12:10 PM EST NEWARK, N.J. -- A family doctor from Passaic has pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and admitted there were up to 600 pictures and videos of youngsters engaged in sex acts stored on his computer. Edelfonso Mendez, 40, admitted guilt Friday and now faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced March 7. Authorities said Mendez was one of a number of New Jersey residents caught in a child pornography sweep that started in September 2003 and also nabbed two former ministers, a former school principal and elementary and high school teachers. Mendez's computer was the first searched by federal agents when the sweep began last year. Three Belarussian Web site operators and a Florida credit card company were also targeted by federal investigators. U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said the investigation was the first to target child pornography dealers from around the world by tracking subscriber payments. Mendez is free on bail and is still allowed to practice medicine pending a hearing of the state Board of Medical Examiners. He is required to notify the parents of minor patients of the charges against him, according to prosecutors. Subscribe to Newsday home delivery Copyright ? 2004, The Associated Press newsday.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:58:25 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:58:25 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: HAITI: Killing street children ... Message-ID: December 6, 2004 HAITI: KILLING STREET KIDS, Inc. Below, a letter from Michael Brewer, summarizing the devastating and predictable situation of killing street kids in Haiti. In other countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Colombia) this practice has been called "social cleansing". As with other issues of injustice, inequality and racism in Haiti, the killing of street kids cannot be understood in a vacuum, but in the context of the US-France-Canada instigated and backed coup in February 2004, that ousted Haiti's democratic government and brought back to power the repressive, racist, elitist regime that is now being propped up and "legitimized" by the United Nations, France, Canada and the USA. Please re-publish and re-distribute this letter, citing author and contact info. Please send copies of this info to any media and politicians you know of. You can donate tax-deductible funds directly to "Haitian Street Kinds" (see information below) or via Rights Action (information below). If you want on/ off this elist: info at rightsaction.org. === LETTER FROM HAITI My name is Michael Brewer, RN, an American who lives in Port au Prince, Haiti, where I have an organization and home for street kids and runaway restavek slave children. Being as intimately close to the problem of homeless children as I am, I feel I must let someone know about a very disturbing trend that has begun to surface again in Haiti. Carloads of men referred to as "ancient military," who are actually members of the now disbanded military, have began patrolling the streets of Port au Prince and are indiscriminately murdering street children for no reason other than sport. These men prowl the streets of the city in groups of 6 to 10 with high powered military assault rifles, shotguns and 9mm pistols, wearing all-black uniforms with black ski masks over their heads to conceal their identities. They justify the murders of these boys by referring to them as "vagabonds" and say that they are "cleaning the streets". An example of the merciless slaughter of these children happened last Thursday on the 11th of November between 7:pm and 8:pm in the evening, in a well-known park located in the Petionville section of Port au Prince named Plais Bois. Many homeless boys of all ages sleep in this park at night due to lack of facilities and helping organizations available to them. We are one of the very few advocacy and residential organizations in Port au Prince that offer these boys help and refuge in times of great need. But due to critically deficient support, our capability to take more of them in on a permanent basis is very limited. Here is what happened: At approximately 7:pm in the evening, a carload of these ex-military members, whom the people wrongly refer to as "police," drove by the park and stopped where 20 to 30 children were sleeping. The ones that were not asleep alerted the others, and they all began to run. Three were caught by the men: one 7-year old by the name of Linxson, one 12-year-old and a 15-year-old. The boys were first beaten severely. Black bags were then put over their heads and tied around their necks, and then they were shot and killed. The bodies were placed in the trunk of the car and taken away from the scene. One week earlier, a nine-year-old named Emmanuel was running from a group of these men after he refused to come to them when they called him. They shot him in the leg with an assault rifle to stop him. Three of the men casually walked up to where the child was lying on the ground and crying. They ridiculed him, then shot him again with pistols and a shotgun, for a total of 4 more times. One of my children, a 14 year old boy named Makinzi, was murdered as he was walking down the side of the road about three weeks ago. His face was terribly scared from previous abuse suffered while sleeping on the streets before coming to our home. While sleeping, passer-bys poured flaming liquid of some sort over his face and shoulders, resulting in thick, dark scaring from third degree burns. His self-appointed executioners were heard to say that they thought he was wearing a mask, and assumed that he must be a thief. Summary executions of these children have become almost commonplace. The children are living in fear and their already difficult existence has become comparable to an unarmed soldier in a war zone. One inspection alone of the morgue at Haiti's General Hospital, yielded 4 bodies of massacred street children; one 10 and one 13 year old riddled with bullets, laying along side two other young boys who had been decapitated. The incidents I have given as examples are just a very few of the daily murders of these children that are committed by these groups of men every day and night in every part of the city. There are "dump zones" where the decomposing bodies of little boys can be found any day of the week. I have found many. This is blatant genocide. The merciless atrocities committed on these defenseless, harmless and innocent street children go completely unnoticed, unreported, and uninvestigated. The United Nations forces do nothing and completely ignore this crisis. There is no "real" or effective police for them to turn to due to the children's inability to "pay" for the services or protection of the police. In many cases, the police are participants in the abuse rather than protectors. I also find it very ironic that the Brazilian military forces, now constituting the bulk of the UN presence in Haiti, are from the very country so well known for the murder and abuse of street children in their own country. Their inaction and lack of concern regarding these heinous acts is not difficult to understand when viewed in that context. An effective way must be found to put an end to this ongoing tragedy that has become an epidemic. This is no less than urban terrorism with the most vulnerable, the most innocent, and the most defenseless citizens as it's targets and victims. The urgent and critical nature of this problem dictates that decisive action may be taken now if we are to prevent more children from being terrorized and slaughtered. The terror, insecurity and misery being placed upon these children, whose lives are already far more difficult and painful than any child should be forced to endure, is now at an unprecedented level. There is no one for them to turn to for protection or help except for people like me, and organizations such as mine, who are in reality powerless to do anything real to stop this. Our support is at a point now, where we have many days we are unable to feed them more than once, or even once per day, and our efforts to improve the support for the children renders very little results so far. Humanitarian assistance to Haiti should be expanded to allow non-profit organizations such as our, to directly apply for assistance and on-going support. The small NGO's that work on the ground, directly with the children, are the ones that suffer and have the most difficult time receiving funds and assistance to survive. It is a heartbreaking situation when a young boy comes to our gates in a panic, begging to be let in so that he may escape the dangers he is being forced to live with on the streets, and we are unable to let him in due to limited space and funding to care for him. SUPPORT HAITIAN STREET KIDS If anyone is interested in offering assistance with our efforts to rescue and sustain these children, any and all donations would be gratefully appreciated. 100% of your donations will go toward the medical, educational, nutritional and personal needs of these children. As support for HSKI increases, more frightened and suffering kids will be able to escape the dangers and misery of the streets and be admitted into the home. All donations are tax deductible. Our U.S. mailing address for donation is: Haitian Street Kids, Inc. 5209 Rain Forest Drive McKinney, Texas, USA, 75070 Our non-profit EIN number is: Family Circle Inc., dba: Haitian Street Kids, Inc. (HSKI), No. 74-3116886. If you prefer, donations can be made by credit card or bank payment by going to this web page on the HSKI: http://quicksitemaker.com/members/immunenation/Donation_Form.html Thank you for caring and we hope to hear from you soon. Respectfully, Michael W. Brewer, RN Haitian Street Kids, Inc. haitianstreetkids at rescueteam.com www.HaitianStreetKids.com === To make TAX-CHARITABLE DONATIONS via Rights Action For humanitarian relief work in Haiti, make check payable to "Rights Action" (writing "Haiti Fund" on the memo-line) and mail to: UNITED STATES: 1830 Connecticut Av, NW, Washington DC, 20009. CANADA: 509 St. Clair Ave W, box73527, Toronto ON, M6C-1C0. DONATE BY INTERNET in Canada and the USA: www.rightsaction.org. CFC # 9914. WIRE DONATIONS TO RIGHTS ACTION in the USA and Canada, contact: info at rightsaction.org, 416-654-2074. Thank-you. Grahame Russell, co-director Rights Action === --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 19:00:45 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:00:45 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] For a Global Disruption of Empire = A Call for decentralized, local actions around the world on J20 Message-ID: For a Global Disruption of the Empire ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In Solidarity with the DAWN (DC Anti-War Network, http://www.dawndc.net/) call for groups to converge from around the country and around the world to converge on DC, we call on those who cannot make the trip to DC to organize local actions in their own communities. Why This Call to Action? The empire can only function with the complicity of its populace, and the empire we face is global in nature. As a result, our resistance must be as global as the empire we are opposing. The war, neo-liberal economic policies, increased militarization and border controls, the manipulation of the media only for propaganda are faces of the empire that we are facing all over the world. We make this call because our opposition is not only about stopping the inauguration of one president, but about creating a world of dignity, freedom and equality for people all over the world who are currently being crushed under the boot of global capitalism. We make this call in the spirit of many global calls to action that have come before us, in the spirit of an open invitation. This is an invitation to join in a global insurrection and absolute rejection of the U.S. policies of torture, disappearances without trial and preemptive war, which under the guise of legality and legitimacy threaten to spread around the world and endanger the freedom and safety of all people. Our Rejection We call on people around the U.S. and around the world to join in our rejection of the U.S. policies, but also in a rejection of illegitimate elections. Widespread election irregularities and the systematic disenfranchisement of people of color have damaged any hope of a legitimate election in the United States. Moreover, we reject an administration built on lies and illegal policies which violate not only the U.S. constitution, but violate the inherent dignity of the people of the U.S. and the people of the world. We look to the traditions of Bolivia and Argentina who ousted their criminal presidents through non-violent mass mobilizations of people and we hope to do the same. What Will J20 Look Like? We call on the people of the empire to use their privilege of living within the empire to stop it from functioning on January 20th, 2005, the day that George W. Bush is to be inaugurated the next president of the U.S. Together, we can stop the gears of global capitalism from turning. We call for actions across the U.S. and around the world which are focused on stopping the machinery of war and global capitalism. These actions include both mass mobilizations, street parties, Civil Disobedience and Direct Action as well as Assembleas Populares, Encuentros and other forms of real, direct democracy. Alongside the bodies in the streets, we also call for networks of electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism, and tactical media to join in the struggle. Against the bio-electronic forms of empire dominating the conduits of capital, media, and everyday life, we make this call in the spirit of the Critical Art Ensemble, Conglomco, RTMArk, and all the radio pirates and Indymedia centers worldwide. Who is making this call? This call comes from that intersection of absolute militarism, indigenous resistance and the natural, organic movement of people that is known as the U.S. Mexico border. The call comes from a region which used to be part of Mexico, but is now known as San Diego, California. Living on the border, we have an influx of inspiration both from Seattle, San Francisco and Quebec City, but also from Chiapas, Buenos Aires and Cochabamba. We have seen both how war tears families apart as it sends our generation off to die and how occupation at home is very real and operates in our very neighborhoods. We see hope in the People's Global Action hallmarks and we make this call under those hallmarks. HALLMARKS: 1. A very clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism and feudalism; all trade agreements, institutions and governments that promote destructive globalisation; 2. We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds. We embrace the full dignity of all human beings. 3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker; 4. A call to direct action and civil disobedience, support for social movements' struggles, advocating forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples' rights, as well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism; 5. An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy. The ORGANIC collective Opposing Repression Globally and Nurturing Independent Communities http://ORGANICcollective.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 16:29:48 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:29:48 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] resistance video Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:57:43 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:57:43 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Freemasons Launch Message-ID: rense.com Freemasons Launch Recruitment Campaign By Philip Sherwell in Washington The Telegraph - UK 12-5-4 After centuries of obsessive secrecy and medieval rituals, Freemasons have turned to the modern arts of public relations and advertising for an unprecedented recruitment campaign in America. The days when newcomers could join only by a whispered invitation from an existing "brother", followed by a lengthy initiation, are coming to an end, after a steady fall in membership. The Grand Lodge in New Jersey has launched its most energetic recruitment drive so far, investing about $100,000 (?51,000) in newspaper and cinema advertising to publicise a one-day entry "class" in March. Robert Leonard, a New York public relations executive handling the campaign, needed no introduction: he is a Mason. "If you're looking to make a difference, take a look at Freemasonry," read the adverts in 12 New Jersey papers. "We are committed to charity, brotherhood, friendship and faith and do so through philanthropic and humanitarian acts. Become a better man, father, husband and citizen at the Freemason's one-day class on March 19." Daniel Wilson, the state's grand master, makes no apology for the new tactics. "Freemasonry has long been thought of as a secret society," he said. "We thought it was time to educate people about what Freemasonry is all about. "There has been a steady decline in membership numbers and it is time to turn that around. I believe there are plenty of men looking for the camaraderie and fraternalism that we provide." The website features a greeting from Mr Wilson in full regalia, a fact sheet on Freemasonry and a list of prominent Masons ranging from George Washington (one of 14 presidents) to Harry Houdini and John Wayne. Membership in America peaked at 4.1 million in 1959, largely the result of a surge in new members who had fought in the Second World War. But now it is only about 1.7 million, many of them getting on a bit. There are no official links between American Freemasonry and the British organisation. The main thrust of the campaign is the one-day entry class. Previously, it could take months to complete the three Masonic "degrees" required to become a member, a complicated process that lodges believed was deterring applicants. Conspiracy theorists accuse Freemasons of secretly plotting to take over the world's governments while some religious groups label them a dangerous cult. Such perceptions exasperate members who point out that their charitable work raises more than $750 million a year. Grand Master Richard Fletcher, head of the national Masonic Services Association, hopes to capitalise on interest in Freemasonry resulting from National Treasure, a new film starring Nicolas Cage and Sean Bean. The plot features a fabled treasure safeguarded for the nation by the Freemasons, whom it depicts as honourable and trustworthy. In New Jersey, home to 32,000 Masons, several hundred people have already signed up for the March session. Other states have also used the one-day classes to good effect, even without newspaper advertising: in Ohio and Pennsylvania, they brought in several thousand new members. The New York state lodge, which has run the commercials, had a harder time after an unofficial initiation ritual went horribly wrong. Albert Eid, a veteran Freemason, thought the gun he was firing at a new recruit held blanks, but instead accidentally shot him dead with a live bullet. Although Masonic leaders said guns were banned from lodges, the incident was unwelcome publicity. Freemasonry, which has its roots in the guilds of stonemasons who built the castles and cathedrals of the Middle Ages, has historically shied away from public exposure and relied on a code of signs and rituals at meetings held behind closed doors. The new approach has annoyed some traditionalists but Grand Masters Wilson and Fletcher said the colourful customs and traditions would not be abandoned. The special handshakes, the recitations and the rolled-up left trouser leg are here to stay. Nor are women about to be admitted to the male-only inner sanctum, although in America they are allowed to join affiliated organisations. "We're not changing things willy-nilly," said Mr Fletcher, 70, a retired banker and a Mason for 48 years. "We're not going to stand on street corners and try to lassoo every passing male. But we do want to attract new members. And we believe there is a generation out there who want to get involved with a value-based organisation again." ? Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004. http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/05/wmason05.xml& s Sheet=/news/2004/12/05/ixworld.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:25:00 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:25:00 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Help needed: fliers, posters, video, photos: Tacoma Peltier March Message-ID: PLEASE POST WIDELY From: TACOMA LEONARD PELTIER SUPPORT GROUP P.O. BOX 5464 TACOMA, WA 98415-0464 Tacoma-lpsg at ojibwe.us bayou at blarg.net HELP NEEDED FOR TACOMA REGIONAL PELTIER MARCH AND RALLY Greetings All, GETTING OUT FLIERS AND POSTERS We have about a month and a half before the march. We need help getting fliers and posters out. There are many events that fliers can be passed out at (go to: www.seattle.indymedia.org and look on the left hand side for the link to the peace and justice calendar and you will find many events you can pass out fliers at. For those of you in Portland go to www.portlannd.indymedia.org and you will find events in your area).. You could also get out fliers and posters at colleges and other places where people gather. You can also get them out to groups, organizations, family members and friends. If you are willing to help please contact us at bayou at blarg.net and send us your mailing address. VIDEO AND PHOTOGRAPHS Though the purpose of the Annual Tacoma Marches for 12 years has been to keep Leonard?s case out in the public, to build support for Leonard and to educate people on Leonard?s case and other Native issues going on, we will not be intimidated by the City of Tacoma and their police force into not marching for Leonard. The City of Tacoma has tried to stop our marches and when we stood up to them and demanded our right to march for Leonard Peltier, last year they pulled out a massive police force that was nothing more than a political statement against our right to march. Police on bikes tried to provoke a conflicts with marchers, including make racist remarks to Native marchers. Our security team handled the situation very well and the provocateurs were unsuccessful. Our marches includes people of all ages from Elders to children and people in wheelchairs. We work hard to keep our marches open to all people and to keep them safe. Our all-Native security team has done a great job at that over the years. Those people who have video or camera equipment can help the security team by being in different parts of the march and record what takes place. Also, this will help our legal team should something take place. And we continue to pressure the City of Tacoma for out right to march and having video and photos helps us in that effort. Video of our marches and rallies gets send to other people in North America and is used to help build support in their areas. Photos are also sent to Leonard. So if you can help us please do and send copies of all video and photos to the Tacoma LPSG. Thank you. FUNDRAISINNG We have our large mass mailing coming up, we mail out packets of fliers and posters and we have other expenses. The only money we get to pay for these things is from grassroots supporters. Please, if you can send us a donation of any amount that will help. Please make checks out to: Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group, and send them to the address above. Thank you. 12TH ANNUAL NORTHWEST REGIONAL INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH LEONARD PELTIER MARCH AND RALLY FOR JUSTICE SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2005. TACOMA, WA MARCH FOR JUSTICE: 12:00 NOON Portland Ave. Park (on Portland Ave. between E. 24th and E. Fairbanks Ave. Take Portland Ave. exit off I-5 and head east) RALLY FOR JUSTICE: 1:00 PM U.S. Federal Court House, 1717 Pacific Ave. Program (more to be added later) Harold Belmont: Elder, Native People?s Alliance With Friends and Allies Dorothy Ackerman: Lakota Elder, Portland, OR Aztec Dancers Matilaja: Yu?Pik/Yakama Pete Sanchez: Ktunaxa (Kutenai), Drummer Jim Page: Folk Singer/Activist Michael One Road: AIM, Portland, OR Jeanette Bushnell: Anishinaabe Kerwin Hemlock: Drummer Russell Redner: AIM. Larry Mosqueda: Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace and Olympia CISPES. Juan Jose Bocanegra: Community organizer and long time Peltier supporter. Steve Hapy, Jr: Tacoma LPSG Arthur J. Miller: Tacoma LPSG NW AIM DRUM Leonard Peltier is an American Indian Movement Activist who was framed-up by the government after a firefight on the Pine Ridge Oglala Reservation that happened because of an illegal government operation to steal Oglala land for uranium mining. The head of the local FBI office at the time, Norman Zigrossi, defended the illegal actions by saying: ?Indians are a conquered nation and the FBI is merely acting as a colonial police force? He went on to say, ?When you?re conquered, the people you?re conquered by dictate your future.? ?I have no doubt whatsoever that the real motivation behind both Wounded Knee II and the Oglala firefight, and much of the turmoil throughout Indian Country since the early 1970s, was?and is?the mining companies.? Leonard Peltier In 2003 the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals stated in their ruling, ?Much of the government?s behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed.? The Oglala People were never conquered and Leonard Peltier will not give up the fight for justice. In today?s world it is even more important than ever to stand-up to political persecution. The last two years the City of Tacoma has tried to stop our march and last year the city tried to intimidate us with a massive show of police force. It was the support of many good people and a legal team that won us the right to march in Tacoma. Though our focus has been for 12 years to hold a peaceful march of solidarity with Leonard Peltier, we will not stop marching, we will not be intimidated and we demand the right to come out in public in support of Leonard Peltier without persecution. We ask you to join us at our Annual Regional Tacoma March and Rally in Solidarity with Leonard Peltier as we send the message, we will not give up, we will not surrender, we will continue to stand for justice for Leonard Peltier for how ever long it takes! This action is in support of the important legal efforts of Leonard?s legal team (for more information of to: www.leonardpeltier.org ) In The Spirit Of Crazy House Steve Hapy, Jr Arthur J. Miller Tacoma LPSG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:55:19 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:55:19 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: S Africa - How Blacks Gas Entire Families Message-ID: rense.com S Africa - How Blacks Gas Entire Families >From AfricanCrisis.Org 12-5-4 My mysterious story begins with an armed black intruder who entered my property a few weeks ago. From what I can gather, nobody has ever written about this strange gasing phenomenon before - and it was completely unknown to me, until someone told me of what happened to him. I am also writing this, hoping that people will spread it around, because often one gets valuable feedback and answers. My story begins on the evening of 18th October 2004. I like to think that I am pretty security conscious, and I have various measures to protect my family, including having a 6 foot wall around my property (which is pretty much the norm in South Africa these days). Although I am security conscious, I virtually never carry a firearm on me. I believe in being careful and in preventing problems. So although I have a handgun, it is locked away in my safe, and I have not used it in quite a long time. I live in a small, quiet Johannesburg suburb. It has probably been one of the quietest and most crime free suburbs in the city... until recently. Just after 11pm, one of my home-made security devices went off, indicating that something was in my property. I went to the window of my study and opened the curtain. A black man was clearly visible as one of my security lights shone right on to him. He was no more than 30 foot away from me, and I could clearly see he was holding a sizeable handgun in his right hand. It looked like a normal 9mm type of pistol. I was totally shocked, and the best thing I could think of doing was to shout at him: "What the hell are you doing here?" I caught him off-guard and he ran towards my house and hid around the corner, out of view. I couldn't remember where the key was to my safe where my own handgun was. So I tried to find the telephone number for the Police. I phoned them to report a "burglary in progress"... During this time... with my armed intruder out of sight, I wasn't sure where he was hiding... around the house, or behind a building, or behind a wall. I was wary of walking outside in case he ambushed me. After some minutes... I reckoned the South African Police won't be responding in a decent time span... so I phoned an armed response company saying: "I don't belong to you now... but if you send someone right away... I promise I'll join in the morning!!!!" The Police are only a few miles from where I live... but in the end it took them all of 30 minutes to respond to a "burglary in progress." When I had phoned them, I had told them that I had an armed man on my property! The private security company responded much quicker... When the Police finally arrived and I told them that I had an intruder and he was armed... they were aghast... and didn't seem all that keen on looking around. Meanwhile, the private security company's people were much more prepared. They had bullet-proof vests on and were leading the way for the Police to follow. We searched around... but the armed black intruder had disappeared. The security company's people showed me where he had probably escaped, back over the 6 foot wall into the neighbour's yard behind me. My neighbours woke, and discovered that the armed intruder had obviously been walking around their property and had stolen some small items they had left outside. We presume that the intruder entered their property over their 7 foot wall. That he had then jumped over the wall between us and moved into my property when I had been alerted to his presence. Again... the private security company's people were the first to try to find the intruder. They dashed to the neighbour behind me. Later I had a phone call from the private security company saying they were busy chasing someone near the river. But it appears they never caught him. As for the Police... I never heard from them again. In the future I now know not to waste my time phoning the Police. The private security company then told me that just two weeks prior to my call, they had been called to a house nearby where three armed black men had entered a property. Crime in my neighbourhood is definitely on the rise. It comes from blacks who have no jobs, and who have taken to squatting by a river which runs near our neighbourhood. The government propaganda is of course that life in South Africa is so great for everyone now... well... more and more out of work blacks have taken to living by the river, and then of course they start stealing from the houses nearby. Apparently, they are cleared out by the Police regularly, but more come in, and its bringing with it a crime wave to neighbourhoods in the area. Armed blacks are to be taken seriously. Two years ago, a cousin of mine was shot dead in Germiston when he came home and opened his garage. Armed blacks were skulking in his property. They shot him dead, and then ran away - stealing nothing. A few years ago, one of my neighbours came home to find a black man putting his TV and video out on the lawn. My neighbour accosted the black man, who then attacked him with a screw driver. After my incident... I discovered that in September 2003, the neighbours who live diagonally behind me, had a violent incident. In the afternoon... people saw three young black men sitting under a tree across the road. They were just sitting around all afternoon. We now know they were staking out the house. That evening, the three black men climbed over their 6 foot wall and entered the house. The white family living in that house had a retarded 16 year old daughter. One of the blacks had a handgun, another had a piece of wood. The three walked into the house and the first thing they did was grab the retarded white girl, and started dragging her into the bedroom to gang rape her. The father jumped up out of his chair and charged at them. They shot at him and missed. But in the ensuing struggle another shot went off, and he was severely wounded. The blacks fled. The father ended up in ICU for a month. Later, he was fortunate to recover fully. After my incident, I happened to be talking to an Indian friend of mine. He then started relating to me, his own crime experiences, one of which is so bizarre it is the main subject of this article. The Indian told me that he lived in a neighbourhood which was quiet, until black squatters started putting up shacks next to it. Then they were hit with a crime wave. One day he even dared to chase one of the black intruders. As he caught up to the black man, and put his hand on the black guy's shoulder, the black guy turned around and placed a gun to the Indian's forehead and pulled the trigger. The Indian guy heard it go "click".... but lucky for him... the gun misfired... Then one night an extremely strange incident occurred. They had a young baby which, as babies go, could not sleep through the night. They went to bed that night... and nobody... not even the baby... woke until the next morning. When they woke in the morning, they realised they had been robbed. As they walked through their home they could see robbers had been all over the place. But the biggest shock of all was to see that their door had been literally torn out of its hinges. This was where the robbers had entered. But what they could not understand was how someone could tear a door off its hinges, and then walk everywhere through the house, stealing items, and nobody woke up. The Indian told me that when the Police came to investigate, they sent a special unit to investigate this bizarre crime. The Police were walking around through the house with various devices looking for signs of chemicals - especially a gas. The Police told them that there was a special unit which investigated crimes where criminals robbed a house which they know has people inside it. Apparently, these kinds of criminals do not hesitate to kill the people inside. The Police told them that the reason they never woke up was because they were either gassed or someone sedated them. The Police told them that sometimes if one has servants who cook for you, these servants may collude with criminals. The criminals will give the servants sleeping tablets which they put in the food they cook for you. Then the criminals will rob you that night. But the other potential scenario, the Police told him, is that the criminals actually gas you. They come up to the house, and they put a gas into your house through the ventilation holes in the house. The gas then disipates and in the morning, when the Police come... there are no traces of it. The Police themselves did not seem to know what this gas was. This story was so unbelievable, and I had never heard anything like it, so I started telling my friends about it. And that only deepened the mystery... because many could relate similar sounding stories... One friend I told it to was Kenda. She told me that she had heard of this for many years. She said there were people in her family who were robbed like this. They awoke in the morning to find that even the duvets they were sleeping under, were stolen off of them without them waking up!!! She said it was definitely true and that this gassing theory has even been discussed on a talk show on national TV. She said on the TV program she heard people saying that the gasing is done by people who get something from the Sangomas (Witch Doctors). The criminals take this "stuff" and burn it outside your house at night, and the gas produced by this goes into your house through the ventilation holes and puts you in a deep sleep. Then the criminals break into your house. I am rather skeptical of the idea that Witch Doctors are involved in this. I also think the whole thing is doubly difficult... if someone is making a fire outside one's house... that draws attention by itself... I can't imagine criminals making a fire at night... and getting away with it. My suspicion falls on the gas theory because of the lack of physical evidence (e.g. the Indian never said that the criminals made a fire outside his house...) I told other friends of mine. And the reaction among them was that yes, most of them had heard of this gassing story too, and they could also relate stories of people they knew that it had happened to. Some of them confirmed the details Kenda described - that you will be in such a deep sleep that they will steal the blankets off of you as you sleep. And they will walk all through your house and take anything they want. When you wake in the morning they are gone. I am writing this in the hope that maybe more people know more facts about this extremely bizarre situation. I am stunned at how many people have heard of this story - though it is only recently that I heard of it for the first time. I have wondered if in South Africa, we have some kinds of, for lack of a better phrase, "Super Criminals"... people who have access to really advanced trickery, and who get up to more than we are aware of. I wonder, for example, if there is some kind of gas, which certain criminals can lay their hands on? But what is it? How does it work? How do they dispense it? Interestingly... nobody ever told me of any side-effects caused by this gas. Do you remember the gas the Russians pumped into that Moscow theatre in recent years... which was intended to put people to sleep... in order to deal with a terrorist hostage situation... but then many ended up dying? Could it be that such a gas is somehow available to certain criminals in South Africa? Is it easy to get hold of? What is it? Surely this is not stuff you can just buy over the counter? >From the stories related to me, it appears as if even the Police have never actually discovered what this stuff is... and the gas and criminals alike... just disappear into thin air... Let me tell you another strange story which might be related. Recently, the biggest talk radio station in Johannesburg, Radio 702, put out a story that there are secret codes you can type into your cell phone and then you can listen into other people's conversations. This was widely reported in newspapers. The way it came out was that it was claimed that teenagers had a "game" where they used certain codes to listen in on other people's conversations. Nobody could prove this... until someone actually passed the codes on to Radio 702. 702 then conducted experiments and taped the results, and confirmed that indeed, you could use these codes to listen in on anyone's cell phone calls. There are only three major cell phone companies in South Africa. The one where this was happening denied it was possible. I have a friend who used to work for one of these cell phone companies, and who did programming on their networks. He told me... that he... personally... was involved in programming where cell phones used by certain extremely important people in the Government and ANC, were not monitored. He said he was given a list of certain cell phone numbers, which could make and receive phone calls which were not traced. The way they did it was they programmed the system to destroy all the billing records for these "secret" cell phones. In effect, these important people had cell phones which were free (because there were no billing records)... and they could make and receive calls without any trace of it being kept in archives anywhere. He told me that it is possible to build codes into a cell phone system. Indeed, cell phone engineers put such codes into the system to test and debug it. Now what is interesting is how a "code" was created whereby you could tell the system you wanted to listen in on the conversations of a particular person. And how did teenagers get this? Or do these codes have a particular purpose? Were they built for certain government or political people to use? Did criminals also know these codes? Did an adult then show off and show his kids how to do this... and did it then spread like wildfire among the kids? My friend who worked for the cell phone company also told me that in about 1998, the South African Government went to the cell phone companies, and informed them that they would have to install the necessary technology so that cell phone conversations could be tapped. He said that when he worked for the cell phone company... each week, someone from the Secret Service would come to collect tapes of conversations of certain monitored cell phones. I can't help wondering whether criminals in South Africa have access to various technology that gives them some stunning powers which no criminal in any other country would have access to? I even wonder if there are "Super Criminals" who are never caught... If anyone has any information on the gassing/sedating theory... they are welcome to drop me a line on the contact page of my website at: WWW.AfricanCrisis.org. If I get more information I will pass it on, as this is one of the most mysterious and least-talked-about stories I have ever come across. As for my armed intruder... this was the third black male who has entered my property illegally in the 9 years that I have lived there, and the first one who was armed. I am lucky it was only one guy. Some people have suggested to me that he may have been the first of a gang, since they normally operate in groups of 2-5. My neighbour... the one who had been attacked by a screw-driver-weilding black man... told me that 3 weeks earlier he was going for his daily walk, when he saw a white Opel containing 4 young black males, come screaming out of the drive-way of someone further down the road in our neighbourhood. He later learned that the four young armed black men had waited for someone to enter the house and then they dashed into the drive-way while the gate was open and robbed the whites who lived there. He had spotted them racing out of the drive way. One evening, about 2-3 weeks after my armed intruder incident, I walked to my neighbour to talk to him. We stood by his gate overlooking the small park in front of our houses. There, parked at a strange angle, was a white Opel with two black men in it.... a rather uncommon sight in our neighbourhood as there are mostly whites who live there. It was dusk... and the two black men just sat in the car... nobody came to see them... they never got out... it was as if they were watching other houses across the road from ours. As I walked back into my house to call the security company... the blacks switched on their car and drove away... just as I was calling the security company. The white Opel was gone before the security company could get someone there to accost them... My handgun no longer just lies in the safe... Its ready for immediate use... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:13:14 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:13:14 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Former Marine Says Unit Killed Iraqi Civilians Message-ID: "When you don't know who the enemy is, what are you doing there?" asked the former Marine. ABC Online US Marine claims unit killed Iraqi civilians. 08/12/2004. ABC News Online [This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1260377.htm] Last Update: Wednesday, December 8, 2004. 11:45am (AEDT) US Marine claims unit killed Iraqi civilians A former US Marine said his unit killed more than 30 innocent Iraqi civilians in just two days, in graphic testimony to a Canadian tribunal probing an asylum claim by a US Army deserter. Former Marine Sergeant Jimmy Massey appeared as a witness to bolster claims by fugitive paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman that he walked out on the 82nd Airborne Division to avoid being ordered to commit war crimes in Iraq. Mr Hinzman, 26, claims he would face persecution if sent home to the United States, in a politically charged case which could set a precedent for at least two other US deserters seeking asylum in Canada. Mr Massey told Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) that men under his command in the 3rd battalion, 7th Marines, killed "30 plus" civilians within 48 hours while on checkpoint duty in Baghdad. "I do know that we killed innocent civilians," Mr Massey told the tribunal, relating the chaotic days after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Mr Massey said that in some incidents, Iraqi civilians were killed by between 200 and 500 rounds pumped into four separate cars which each failed to respond to a single warning shot and respond to hand signals at a Baghdad checkpoint. At the time, US soldiers feared suicide bombers would try to ram checkpoints, he said. Searches found no weapons in the vehicles or evidence that those killed were anything but innocent civilians, he said. He also said Marines killed four unarmed demonstrators, and more Iraqis the next day during another spell of checkpoint duty in the occupied Iraqi capital. "I was never clear on who was the enemy and who was not," said Mr Massey. "When you don't know who the enemy is, what are you doing there?" asked the former Marine, later honourably discharged from the service with severe depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Mr Hinzman earlier argued in the tribunal, which started on Monday and was due to end Wednesday, that he gradually realised after joining the Army in 2001 that he could not bring himself to kill another person. "I was faced with being deployed to Iraq to do what the infantry does, kill people, and I had no justification for doing so," said Mr Hinzman. Mr Hinzman and his wife and two-year-old son arrived in Canada early this year, after deserting from his unit, an action which carries a maximum five-year term in jail. The South Dakota-born soldier is claiming refugee status based on his contention that he was right to refuse to fight in a war which he says was illegal and violated human rights and the Geneva Conventions. He also claims he would face persecution if returned home to face desertion charges. Mr Hinzman first requested conscientious objector status in 2002 before learning he was to be posted to Afghanistan, where he eventually made 18 combat parachute jumps. The following year, the request was rejected, and late in 2003 he learned he was to be deployed to Iraq, prompting his flight to Canada. Odds against him winning the case are slim, as no such verdict has ever been handed to a US soldier here or to a combatant in a non-conscription army. The IRB was set up to consider the merits of refugee claims at arms length from the Canadian Government. Presiding member Brian Goodman signalled on Tuesday he would ask for written submissions from Mr Hinzman's counsel, a government lawyer and a refugee officer, thereby ruling out a judgement on the case on Wednesday. Mr Goodman will decide whether Hinzman would face persecution if sent back to the United States by dint of political or religious beliefs or his status as an objector to US military action. The judgement will also question whether Mr Hinzman will face "cruel and unusual" punishment, during what would likely be a long prison term. -AFP ? 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation Copyright information: http://abc.net.au/common/copyrigh.htm Privacy information: http://abc.net.au/privacy.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:26:45 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:26:45 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: HLI to Expose Kissinger-United Nations' Population Message-ID: HLI to Expose Kissinger-United Nations' Population Control Program Used to Control Developing Nations & Their Natural Resources To: National and International Desks Contact: Jennifer Taylor of Human Life International, 540-622-5272, jtaylor at hli.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 /Christian Wire Service/ -- Human Life International (HLI) will hold a press conference this Thursday -- Dec. 9, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., beginning at 9:30 a.m. ET -- to release Kissinger Report 2004: A Retrospective on NSSM-200. Press Conference Details: WHERE: National Press Club, 529 14th Street, N.W. (13th Floor), Washington, D.C. (Light refreshments will be served.) WHEN: Thursday, Dec. 9, 9:30 a.m. ET WHAT: Kissinger Report 2004 WHO: Human Life International WHY: HLI officials and leaders from several of the 13 targeted nations will expose how National Security Study Memorandum 200 -- primarily authored by then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger -- systematically instituted population control programs in the name of national security to gain unimpeded access to these countries' natural resources. The plan called for collusion among the U.S. government, the United Nations and non-governmental organizations like International Planned Parenthood Federation. According to NSSM-200: "Throughout the implementation of the (population control) process, we have to make sure to hide our tracks and disguise our programs as altruistic . . . hiding the fact that we want access to their natural resources." "Americans will be shocked to learn how billions of their tax dollars have been wasted on programs specifically intended to violate the most basic human rights," said Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, president of HLI. "This Friday marks the 30th anniversary of NSSM-200 and there can be no mistaking the devastation and havoc it has wreaked upon these unsuspecting nations." # # # ______________________________________________ The preceding was forwarded to you by the Christian Communication Network. You can always find the latest pro-life and pro-family press releases at www.ChristianWireService.com To no longer receive CCN's postings of pro-life and pro-family press releases, email info at earnedmedia.org with the message "REMOVE PRESS." Christian Communication Network 2020 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington DC 20006 202.546. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Tue Dec 14 10:27:12 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:27:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] (AP) 10-Year-Old Girl Arrested, Handcuffed for Taking Scissors to School Message-ID: <20041214182712.75582.qmail@web13626.mail.yahoo.com> Security has gone amok. Don't look now but the world is laughing behind your back. IBB http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBS3YT9M2E.html 10-Year-Old Girl Arrested, Handcuffed for Taking Scissors to School The Associated Press Published: Dec 11, 2004 PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A 10-year-old girl was placed in handcuffs and taken to a police station because she took a pair of scissors to her elementary school. School district officials said the fourth-grade student did not threaten anyone with the 8-inch shears, but violated a rule that considers scissors to be potential weapons. Administrators said they were following state law when they called police Thursday, and police said they were following department rules when they handcuffed Porsche Brown and took her away in a patrol wagon. "My daughter cried and cried," said her mother, Rose Jackson. "She had no idea what she did was wrong. I think that was way too harsh." Police officers decided the girl hadn't committed a crime and let her go. However, school officials suspended her for five days. Administrators will decide at a hearing whether she may return to class, or be expelled to a special disciplinary school. The scissors were discovered while students' belongings were being searched for property missing from a teacher's desk. School district officials have promised a crackdown on unruly students this year, and new policies give administrators the power to expel students for infractions as minor as violating the dress code, chronic tardiness or habitual swearing. Administrators say the steps are needed to regain control over a notoriously unruly school system, but some parents have complained that discipline has been overly harsh and that school officials have been too quick to call police about minor problems. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:37:24 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:37:24 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fwd: Update on (*EcoAnarchist Political Prisoner*) Jeff 'Free' Luers' appeal Message-ID: Finally, we have some news to share with you about the status of Jeff's appeal. It's not great but for everyone that has wondered, here it is. As you can see, this process is remarkably slow and the end is nowhere in sight. PS-Jeff's birthday is December 5th. While Jeff has asked that people NOT send him cards etc, please hold him in your thoughts that day and consider doing something to help his case. The holidays are rough times for prisoners. Update on Jeff 'Free' Luers' appeal November 24, 2004 Jeff's appeal is currently on hold. In June, the United States Supreme Court decided Blakely v. Washington, 542 US ___, 124 S Ct 2531, ___ L Ed 3d ___ (2004). The case has the potential to affect the sentences of thousands of people sentenced under Oregon's sentencing guidelines, including Jeff's. The Oregon Court of Appeals has received requests for additional briefing on Blakely in so many cases that it has delayed ruling on these requests until Oregon courts have a chance to figure out the impact of Blakelyon sentencing in Oregon. The Oregon Court of Appeals and Supreme Court are expected to begin issuing opinions in some representative cases (also called "lead cases") soon. After that, the Court of Appeals will decide to allow or deny additional briefing in cases like Jeff's, and his appeal will go forward from there. How can you help the appeal and Jeff's case: You can contribute funds to Jeff?s appeal or to his commissary account a few different ways: ? Online: donations can be made online on a secure server through Paypal. To make a donation, click here: All names/addresses are kept confidential. These donations go to fund Jeff?s appeals. ? Snail Mail: You can send checks/money orders made out to ?Free?s defense network? to POB 3, Eugene, OR 97440. Specify legal fund or commissary. ? Directly to Jeff?s commissary account: These funds are used by Jeff to buy necessities like pens, stamps, envelopes etc. Money orders only [no checks] can be made out to: DOC Central Trust for (For Jeffrey Luers, #13797671) and sent to DOC Central Trust for (For Jeffrey Luers, #13797671). DOC Central Trust, PO Box 14400,Salem OR 97309-5077. 2. Jeff?s case desperately needs to stay in the news and in the public?s mind in order to affect his appeal and chances of getting out. Letters to Oregon based media are very useful. Here are a few media outlets you can write to. For examples of letters sent on Free?s behalf, see here. ? Eugene Weekly, 1251 Lincoln, Eugene OR 97401. editor at eugeneweekly.com ? Register Guard, PO Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440-2188. rgletters at guardnet.com ? Portland Mercury, 605 NE 21st Avenue, Suite 200, Portland, OR 97232. mercuryeditorial at portlandmercury.com ?Willamette Week, 822 SW 10th Avenue, Portland, OR 97205. mzusman at wweek.com It is also a good idea to write to the Governor of Oregon to urge him to intervene on Free?s behalf: Governor of Oregon Ted Kulongoski, 160 State Capitol, 900 Court Street, Salem, Oregon 97301-4047. Fax: 503.378.6827. 3. Form a support group/work directly with Jeff Local support groups can do everything from hosting benefits to web based activism to staging protests. You can write Jeff at Jeffrey Luers, #13797671, Oregon State Penitentiary, 2605 State Street, Salem, OR 97310. Also, feel free to get involved with a pre-existing group like Break the Chains 4-Sign Jeff's solidarity statement: Check it out at http://www.freefreenow.org/signon.html 5-Buy a Slingshot 2005 organizer from Friends of Jeff Luers for $6. Proceeds benefit Jeff's legal fund. Email freefreenow at Mutualaid.org for details. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stateyourcause/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StopNightmareDogIndustries/ hlssuckslists.riseup.net "Live in peace with the animals. Animals bring love to our hearts, and warmth to our souls"-Colleen Klaum ?The ultimate measure of a community is not where it stands in times of comfort and convenience, but where it stands in times of challenge and controversy.? -Martin Luther King Jr. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:55:59 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:55:59 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: THE BATTLE FOR YOUR MIND Message-ID: THE BATTLE FOR YOUR MIND Persuasion & Brainwashing Techniques Being Used On The Public Today By Dick Sutphen The following is an expanded version of a lecture Dick Sutphen delivered at the World Congress of Professional Hypnotists Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although the paper carries a 1984 copyright to protect the contents from unlawful duplication for sale, Dick invites individuals to make copies and give them to friends or anyone in a position to communicate this information. Since the paper was released, it has been distributed to millions and is currently available on dozens of Websites. As a result of this awareness, Dick has been contacted by law enforcement officers, the BBC and investigative reporters. On numerous occasions, the information has helped to bring public attention to the misuse of conversion tactics. Some government agencies don't want this information generally known, for the techniques are used in armed forces basic training. Some Christian Fundamentalists, cults, and human-potential trainings would also prefer that the public remain unaware of how they are recruiting new members. Summary of Contents: a. The Birth of Conversion / Brainwashing in Christian Revivalism in 1735. b. The Pavlovian explanation of the three brain phases. c. Born-again preachers: Step-by-step, how they conduct a revival and the expected physiological results. d. The "voice roll" technique used by preachers, lawyers and hypnotists. e. The 6 steps to conversion. f. The decognition process. g. Thought-stopping techniques. h. The "sell it by zealot" technique. i. True believers and mass movements. j. Persuasion techniques: "Yes set", "Imbedded Commands", "Shock and Confusion", and the "Interspersal Techniques", Subliminals. k. Vibrato and ELF waves. l. The "only hope" technique to attend and not be converted. m. Non-detectable Neurophone programming through the skin. n. The medium for mass take-over. http://www.dicksutphen.com/html/battlemind.html ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/zgSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ============================================== IF YOU'RE NOT PARANOID, THEN YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION! ============================================== To Post: ParanoidTimes at yahoogroups.com Home Page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ParanoidTimes Subscribe: ParanoidTimes-subscribe at yahoogroups.com ================================================== NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 17:44:03 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:44:03 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Chicago Transit Authority Fare Strike Called December 15th Message-ID: DECEMBER 15TH: FARE STRIKE! Riders Don't Pay! Workers Don't Collect! The CTA has slated January 2nd 2005 as Doomsday. This is the day services are to be cut by 20%, 1250 jobs are to be terminated and paratransit fares will be increased by 100%. While CTA officials claim the only solution would be extra money from the state, we have been holding CTA president Frank Kruesi and his board responsible. It is the CTA who has known this crisis was coming and has made the decision to dump it on the backs of workers and riders. They are the ones who ignored it as they built their new $119 million Lake Street office. It is also Kruesi and his buddy mayor Daley who are still talking about spending almost 2 billion dollars on a new Circle line, just so rich folks can get from their neighborhoods to the airport a little bit quicker. If there is money for such luxury, there is no excuse for cutting our service, terminating our jobs and raising our fares! In response, Midwest Unrest has called for a fare strike starting December 15th. If no final decision to scrap these cuts, job terminations and fare increases has been announced by then, we are calling on all CTA riders to ride their routes like they do everyday but without paying. The CTA depends on us paying and collecting fares. This is where our power to pressure them lies. This tactic has been successful before, in San Francisco, Italy, France and elsewhere. In Chicago, there is widespread support for a fare strike among bus operators, many of whom have already received pink slips. They've said time and again, "It's not our job to collect the fares." So starting December 15th, politely state that you are on fare strike when you board your buses and take your seat without paying. Until then start spreading the word. Talk to your bus operators and other riders. Download flyers from our website and pass them out. Together we can make this a success! Here's how to get involved: *****Don't pay or collect for transit starting December 15th. And keep riding and driving for free until all service cuts, job terminations and fare increases are reversed. *****Tell everyone you know about the fare strike. Forward this email. *****Poster your neighborhood, and pass out flyers while you're on the bus or the "L". You can print them out from our website. If you don't have access to a printer of photocopier, get in touch with us and we'll get you some flyers and posters. *****If you have access to a photocopier (or happen to have money you could donate to make photocopies) that would be great. We are always looking for more photocopies. *****Take initiative. If you have an idea about how to make the fare strike more successful, don't wait to tell us about it. Go out and do it yourself. But do let us know about it, we are always open to new ideas. 773-2507060 midwest_unrest at riseup.net http://www.midwestunrest.net/farestrike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Tue Dec 14 20:30:42 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 20:30:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Guilty of "Flying While Muslim" Message-ID: <20041215043042.53782.qmail@web13625.mail.yahoo.com> GUILTY OF 'FLYING WHILE MUSLIM'? Salam Al-Marayati, Los Angeles Times, 12/11/04 http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-vo-marayati11dec11,0,4713167.story Over Thanksgiving, my wife and I took our kids to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. After our relaxing vacation, we returned home to Los Angeles, only to face some disconcerting homeland insecurity. We were met by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as soon as we left the jetway at LAX. Evidently, they were looking for someone, and it turned out to be me. When they looked at my name, they provided us with an armed escort to a special area. All I could think about at the time was my kids. I prayed they would not be exposed to anything that would cause them to resent their birthplace, the United States, as a result of this encounter with law enforcement. One officer told us that we had nothing to worry about; if something was wrong, then we would be in handcuffs. I thought to myself: If I was on a "no fly" list, then why was I allowed to leave L.A. on an airplane in the first place and to board another flight for my return? One officer asked whether we had committed any criminal act in the past or had done anything that would warrant an investigation. I looked at my children, and my heart sank. Of course the answer was no, but just being asked such a question in front of your children was appalling. Then came a man named Tommy Scott, dressed in civilian clothes, who seemed to be experienced in interrogations. He had no credentials, at least none that were visible, and we were too disoriented to ask. He asked about the purposes for our travels. He wanted to know which charities we donated to and whether those organizations send money overseas. This line of questioning reminded me of a brochure issued by the FBI two months ago in partnership with Arab, Muslim and Sikh organizations: "If I give money to charity that is investigated for ties to terrorism, will I be investigated? It is not a crime to contribute to a legitimate charity and no one will be prosecuted for doing so. You may wish to discuss with your mosque and community leaders where the money is going before you contribute. "If I travel to the Middle East, will I come under the scrutiny of the American government? Legitimate travel to most areas of the Middle East will not result in any type of scrutiny." So, do those FBI words carry any weight or are they just meaningless attempts to win public relations points with communities of interest? Individuals can be punished for misleading statements given to the government, but what about misleading government statements issued to the public? Scott scribbled notes on his pad and walked away. The customs officers, playing the "good cops," kept assuring us that we would be released within five to 10 minutes. However, not until I told them about my work with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice did they start calling around to expedite my departure. In my role as the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, I had even worked with the Treasury Department to promote legitimate charitable activities of American Muslim institutions. Anyone detained as I was and unaware of his rights could have been kept at the airport for hours or longer. This is where the war on terror has gone awry ? wasting valuable resources, alienating allies and eroding partnerships between law enforcement and grass-roots communities. If we Americans learned anything from 9/11, it is that we should do everything possible to promote cooperation and oppose humiliating and intimidating people in the fight against terrorism. While sitting in the detention area, my 12-year-old son asked: "What about the Pledge of Allegiance, where it says liberty and justice is for all. Don't they have to believe in it, too?" Apparently not. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Tue Dec 14 21:13:38 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 21:13:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] NIGERIA Chosen to Host the 2008 Genocides. Message-ID: <20041215051338.58340.qmail@web13606.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4050 NIGERIA Chosen to Host the 2008 Genocides. ABUJA, NIGERIA?At a celebratory press conference Monday, President Olusegun Obasanjo announced that Nigeria's troubled but oil-rich city of Warri has been chosen to host the 2008 Genocides. "Nigeria is excited for this chance to follow in the footsteps of Somalia, Rwanda, and Sudan," Obasanjo said. "Much work remains to be done, but all of the building blocks are in place. Nigeria has many contentious ethnic groups, a volatile economy, and a dependence on food imports. We are well on our way to making 2008 a genocidal year to remember in Nigeria!" Obasanjo acknowledged that many people considered Nigeria, a relatively stable West African nation, an unlikely candidate to host the Genocides. "With a multi-party government transitioning from military to civilian rule, Nigeria is not a shoo-in to host the Genocides," Obasanjo said. "But last week's municipal election?with ballot shortages and multiple accusations of vote tampering?showed the world that Nigeria is, indeed, geared up for the unimaginable." Oni Radhiya, a spokesman from the 2004 Genocide Board, said September's crippling polio outbreak may have helped Nigeria beat out the competition. "Sudan was a fantastic host this year?the 2004 Genocides have really raised the bar," Radhiya said. "For 2008, many of us on the committee had our eyes on Tajikistan. The country's ongoing ethnic and religious strife made it a strong contender. But there was some concern that the conflict was as likely to simmer down as it was to boil over." Radhiya added that Iraq was ruled out because the country is unlikely to exist three and a half years from now. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that, after a close examination of all bids, a Nigerian genocide "began to seem almost inevitable." "Nigeria's stability has been repeatedly threatened by fighting between fundamentalist Muslims and Christians," Annan said. "Five of Nigeria's seven political parties are extremist groups. The nation's ethnic Yoruba, Hausa, and Ibo populations of the oil-rich Niger Delta area also show genocidal promise." Annan said he first noticed the full genocidal potential of soon-to-be embattled Nigeria in September, when the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force threatened to shut down oil production. "With so many poor and powerless people involved in messy, years-old conflicts, the situation is likely to be ignored long enough for things to get really ugly," Annan said. "And, of course, the slow-to-move, ineffectual UN will do everything it can to help shepherd Nigeria into a combined religious, political, and economic disaster of horrific proportions." According to Nigerian officials, now that their country has secured the bid, the government has much work to do. "Don't think we'll just sit on our hands and wait for a crippling drought to pit neighbor against neighbor," Nigerian Minister of State Bello Usman said. "No, the next two years will be crucial. We need to default on our $2 billion IMF loan, invest the entire treasury in the overhead-heavy petroleum business, and turn a blind eye to regional guerrilla groups. That'd be a good start. After that, food shipments must fall into rebel hands, armed forces must go unpaid, and the emerging national infrastructure must be allowed to deteriorate." Added Usman: "There's a lot to accomplish, but I promise you this: By early 2008, ashes will blacken the sky and blood will run in the streets." According to Red Cross programming director Ellen Schumacher, genocide, once a spectacle that drew the attention of the entire world, has received less attention in recent years, drawing an ever-diminishing Western audience. "The most glaring problem has been a time-zone issue, since most of the proceedings take place during inconvenient, off-peak viewing times," Schumacher said. "But, as an oil-rich nation, Nigeria is much more likely to build a viewer base in the West. Perhaps the country will even be able to get one of the networks to pony up for exclusive rights." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:25:41 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:25:41 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Emergency appeal to help an activist in need Message-ID: December 7, 2004 Dear friends, We are writing to encourage you to help support our dear friend and colleague, Luke Anderson. As you may know, Luke is one of the world's leading activists on genetic engineering, and has been working tirelessly for many years on behalf of all of us. A few weeks ago, Luke's biodiesel camper van was stolen in Berkeley. His van was his traveling home and contained virtually all of his possessions, including over a year's worth of creative writing and other personal mementos. Although the van was found three weeks later, the people who stole it had sold or trashed all of Luke's belongings and damaged the vehicle. Can you help us raise the $9,200 that Luke needs to at least recover the replaceable portion of his losses and repair his van? Luke has been a full time activist since the 1990s, writing, speaking, inspiring and organizing groups in the US and around the world. Activists like Luke forego the usual measures of personal security in order to put their best energies toward the work of social change. This is a chance for all of us to show that the movement can take care of its own -- to model the caring society we hope to create. Please contribute what you can: $100, $50, $10. More if you can. Please send your donation to Luke Anderson, c/o Margaret and Gary, P.O. Box 233, Boonville, CA 95415. Electronic donations are also possible, via http://www.adoptanactivist.org/donate. Click on the "Paypal" button and enter "Luke Anderson" in the "Payment For" box. For a tax deductible contribution, make your check out to "Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County," write "Adopt-an-Activist/Luke" in the memo line, and mail it to Adopt-an-Activist, PO Box 9363, Santa Rosa, CA 95405. For questions regarding donations, email adoptanactivist at riseup.net. Please forward this to any email lists you feel would be appropriate. Thank you, and have a phenomenal (and GE-Free) holiday season! Brian Tokar (briant at sover.net) Jeffrey Smith (jeffrey at seedsofdeception.com) Starhawk (stella at mcn.org) __________ Some more information about Luke's work: In 1997, Luke founded the Totnes (UK) Genetics Group, which helped set the stage for the most successful, sustained opposition to genetic engineering anywhere in the world. In 2000, he began touring the US with his comprehensive book, Genetic Engineering, Food and Our Environment (now in its third edition), informing many for the first time about the dangers of GE foods. In 2001 he relocated to California, touring the state in preparation for that year's Biojustice event in San Diego. Subsequent tours helped gather thousands of people for the 2003 Sacramento Mobilization against the USDA and the 2004 Reclaim the Commons events in San Francisco. Luke has also worked extensively in Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Europe, Canada, and in several California counties in support of local anti-GE intiatives. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: message-footer.txt URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Wed Dec 15 12:21:29 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 12:21:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Mentally-ill girl who was sold for sex faces death penalty in Iran Message-ID: <20041215202129.42835.qmail@web13625.mail.yahoo.com> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=592910 Mentally-ill girl who was sold for sex faces death penalty in Iran By Angus McDowall in Tehran 14 December 2004 A teenage girl with a mental age of eight is facing the death penalty for prostitution in Iran. The trial comes only four months after the hanging of another mentally ill girl for sex before marriage in a case that has prompted a human rights lawyer to prepare a charge of wrongful execution against the presiding judge. The girl, known as Leyla M, is in prison while the Supreme Court decides on her "acts contrary to chastity", among the most serious charges under Iranian law. Under the penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be executed. In an interview on a Persian-language website, the 19-year-old says she was forced into prostitution by her mother at the age of eight. Amnesty International refers to reports that say she was repeatedly raped, bore her first child aged nine and was passed from pimp to pimp before having another three children. She told the website: "The first time I was taken to a man's house by my mum I was eight. It was a horrible night and I cried a lot but then my mum came the next day and took me home. She bought me chocolate and cheese curls." Iranian press reports say Leyla was charged with controlling a brothel, having sex with blood relatives and bearing an illegitimate child. Amnesty says the court refused to admit social workers' evidence of her young mental age and convicted her on the basis of confessions. Her prosecution echoes the fate of an even younger girl, Atefeh Rajabi, executed in August. In her case a judge known as Hajj Rezai reportedly put the noose around her neck himself after convicting her on the basis of her confessions for the fourth time in two years. She begged for her life while being led to the gallows, shouting "repentance". Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer representing Atefeh's family, has filed a suit of wrongful execution against the judiciary and is preparing a murder case against Mr Rezai after uncovering new evidence. She has found documents seen by The Independent that prove Atefeh was mentally ill and her confessions should not have been used. "There is an article in the penal code that if somebody is sentenced to lashing on three separate occasions for the same offence, the fourth conviction incurs the death penalty," Ms Sadr toldThe Independent. "The same judge tried her for each of these past cases but we haven't been allowed to see the files." A different man was involved in each of Atefeh's convictions. All refused to confess but the judge said it was obvious they had sex with her and sentenced them each to 95 lashes. After her trial, Atefeh said she had been a victim of sexual assault during spells of mental ill health. After her first conviction in 2001 when 14, she spent time in a state facility for the "socially harmed". Ms Sadr has obtained documents written by officials there backing up her story. An undated report written by the facility's psychiatrist says she had a history of "chronic sexuality" and was given to "pseudo hallucinations" and seductive behaviour. He diagnosed her with borderline bipolar disorder. People in Atefeh's neighbourhood wrote two petitions - one before her conviction and one afterwards - affirming that she suffered from mental illness and begging for leniency. Ms Sadr has been unable to locate the defence lawyer in the case. After the verdict, Atefeh wrote to the High Court, saying: "There are medical documents that prove I have weak nerves and soul. In some minutes of the day and night I lose my sanity. During these attacks any kind of positive or negative actions may be done by me. In a society where an insane person can be serially raped or abused it is no wonder that a person like me is the victim of such an ugly act." Ms Sadr says Atefeh's mental state should have invalidated the case. The day before the execution Atefeh told her aunt she had written three words to the High Court: "Repentance, repentance, repentance." In Iranian law, somebody who repents their crime is granted the right to appeal against their sentence. A social worker's report says Atefeh's father and brother were heroin addicts and after her mother's death "she sought affection on the streets". Ms Sadr says it is impossible to verify lurid claims in dissident websites about an improper relationship between girl and judge. "We will never know what happened between Atefeh and the judge because she is dead, he won't tell and she was tried in a closed court." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. Learn more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Wed Dec 15 12:44:09 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 12:44:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Winning Hearts and Minds..............................................................NOT!!!! Message-ID: <20041215204409.83998.qmail@web13606.mail.yahoo.com> FOCUS: Details of Marines Mistreating Prisoners Are Revealed http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604Y.shtml ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! ? What will yours do? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Wed Dec 15 12:43:33 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 12:43:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Winning Hearts and Minds..............................................................NOT!!!! Message-ID: <20041215204333.85569.qmail@web13602.mail.yahoo.com> FOCUS: Details of Marines Mistreating Prisoners Are Revealed http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604Y.shtml ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Wed Dec 15 16:24:03 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 16:24:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Mark Morford: Canada Goes To Hell Message-ID: <20041216002403.80657.qmail@web13624.mail.yahoo.com> ===== Mark Morford's Notes & Errata ===== SFGate.com - December 15, 2004 --------------------------------- Canada Goes To Hell Legal pot? Legal gay marriage? Universal health care? What's next, free porn and candy? By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Did you hear the screams? Did you feel the menacing chill? Did you see the black and ominous clouds, moving north? Did you sense, in other words, the very presence of Satan himself as he laughed maniacally and tossed around bucketfuls of ultrathin condoms and little travel-size packets of Astroglide like confetti while riding his Harley Softail up to Toronto or maybe Edmonton to join the ghastly and sodomitic celebrations? Because it's happened. Canada's high court just ruled that the government can, if it so desires, redefine marriage to include gay couples, which it has declared it will do almost immediately, thus solidifying Canada's place as the chilly yet mellow and gay friendly and hockey-riffic epicenter of all known hell. It's true. It's rather amazing. Gay marriage will be completely legal in Canada very soon. It's been oddly ignored in much of the U.S. media and hasn't really been much discussed among those in the terrified red states except when, deep in the night, from their respective lumpy twin beds, they whisper to each other across the room as they pop their Ambien and stroke their portfolios and curse their very genitals: oh my God what's wrong with those freakin' Canadians? ... (click here to read the rest) --------------------------------- All contents (tm) (c) 2004 SF Gate Have a lovely day ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! ? Try it today! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:06:03 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:06:03 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Looking Back and Forward Message-ID: Friends, Hopefully you all got notice that the next group meeting is coming up on Monday the 13th, from 6:30-8 pm at the U District library. If you have suggestions for agenda items, please pass them along. Also note that there are several short Burma films showing as part of the Amnesty International Seattle Human Rights Film Festival at 4 pm on Saturday the 11th at the 911 Media Arts Center, 402 9th Ave N. in Seattle. I'm working to get approval to sell some "For the Lady" CDs to benefit the US Campaign for Burma. In any case we can raise awareness about our own group with some flyers and sign-ups lists. As I have another event later in the evening, I'd be keen to have someone else there to help get the word out. Most of all, I want to thank all of you for making the November 9 event at Suzallo Library such a success. I think we should think about doing a repeat of this event on the East Side, whether Mercer Island, Bellevue, Redmond or Issaquah. Perhaps next March or April? We'd do well to build more awareness in that part of town. Hopefully we can talk about this at Monday's meeting. Best, Larry 206-784-5742 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BURMA ACTION GROUP SAO Box 119, HUB University of Washington http://students.washington.edu/burma/ Seattle, WA 98195 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Wed Dec 15 19:54:57 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 19:54:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] 1 of L.A. Zoo's 4 Elephants Dies Message-ID: <20041216035457.1985.qmail@web13608.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-elephant15dec15,1,6607706.story LOS ANGELES 1 of L.A. Zoo's 4 Elephants Dies By Monte Morin, Times Staff Writer Tara, a moody and doe-eyed African elephant that had delighted crowds at the Los Angeles Zoo since 1966, died Tuesday morning in her pen of unknown causes, officials said. She was 44. A solitary pachyderm who would act aggressively toward some females and make friends with others, Tara was discovered sprawled on her side by two animal keepers. She died half an hour later, zoo officials said. "She had eaten during the night and there were no physical signs in her barn or yard that she was stressed or struggled," said head elephant keeper Joe Briscoe. "[Monday] she ate well and went about her daily routine normally. So right now, I just don't know what happened." Tara will be examined by veterinarians to determine the cause of death, said zoo director John Lewis. African elephants in the wild live to around age 40 and, therefore, Tara could have been considered "senior-aged," he said. "She lived a pretty full life. Everybody's sad about this." Tara was born in Kenya in 1960 and captured at age 2, according to the North American Region Studbook for the African Elephant, a catalog of captive elephants. She was exhibited at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Fla., before being sent to the Los Angeles Zoo. "Tara had a very tough life," said Gretchen Wyler of the Humane Society of the U.S., a group that has filed suit against the zoo to protest the relocation of another of the zoo's four elephants. "She was taken from her mother at the age of 2. Can you imagine what that must have been like?" Wyler said. Tara's medical records suggested she may have suffered from arthritis, Wyler said. "She couldn't move her knees. She'd just shuffle around." Tara recently had been housed outside public view on the zoo grounds. Her neighbor was Ruby, another African elephant. The two had grown friendly and were frequently heard making noises together or seen touching trunks. Ruby, 44, had just returned to the Los Angeles Zoo after an 18-month stay at the Knoxville Zoo in Tennessee. She had been sent there for an elephant propagation project over the protests of animal rights advocates. Wyler and others had argued in court papers that Ruby should not be separated from Gita, a 46-year-old Asian elephant also kept at the Los Angeles Zoo, and, critics claimed, Ruby's best friend. Ruby failed to assimilate with the other animals in Tennessee and was returned. Critics said it was because she missed Gita. Zoo officials said Tuesday that because Ruby had to be quarantined for 30 days after her return, she wasn't penned with Gita. It was OK that she was close enough to Tara to touch trunks because they were the same species, officials said. Gita has been housed with Billy, a 19-year-old Asian elephant. Zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca said that while Ruby's quarantine ended Tuesday, officials had yet to decide on her zoo living arrangement. Wyler said that Tara's death was a sad thing, but she hoped something good would come of it. "I hope that now the zoo will put Ruby and Gita back together," she said. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Wed Dec 15 21:40:44 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 21:40:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Nine myths and misconceptions about hydrogen Message-ID: <20041216054044.55436.qmail@web13601.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.popsci.com/popsci/generaltech/article/0,20967,927469,00.html Warning: The Hydrogen Economy May Be More Distant Than It Appears Nine myths and misconceptions, and the truth about why hydrogen-powered cars aren't just around the corner By Michael Behar ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! ? Get yours free! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Mon Dec 13 18:52:20 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:52:20 -0800 Subject: [Shadow_Group] Fw: Headline News from Sky News Message-ID: (This is chilling...people are prepared to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for wine owned by Stalin, a man who ruthlessly executed one hundred and fifty million innocent Russians and the brains behind the Jewish Bolshevik movement. Stalin and his Bolsheviks had also murdered Tsar Nicholas and his family (the children were killed in a typical Purim style ritual, replete with blood letting and collection.) Headline News from Sky News 'RED' WINE UNDER HAMMER Legendary wines from the cellars of 19th-century Russian tsars and Joseph Stalin has gone under the hammer - but less than half were sold. The wines had been expected to be snapped up for more than ?500,000. The rare vintages from the Imperial winery at Massandra, near Yalta in the Crimea, are worth up to ?4,000 a bottle and occupy a important place at the heart of Russia's history. Many bear the Tsar's personal seal. Some 150 fortified and dessert wines were at Sotheby's auction house in London, which said they represented some of the finest, rarest Russian wines ever to have appeared on the market. But just 195 lots were sold, leaving a further 327 items "on the shelf". In total, the auction made ?149,391 - less than half of the ?500,000 estimate. The winery was built in the 1890s to supply wines for Tsar Nicholas II's Summer Palace, Livadia. One of the vintage wines Massandra produced sweet wines to cater for the Tsar's every conceivable need. Chief winemaker Prince Lev Sergervich Golitzin's talent for blending wines was legendary, but he took the recipe for many of his greatest blends, including "Honey of Altae Pastures" and "Seventh Heaven" to the grave with him. When Stalin's troops stormed the gates of Massandra in 1920 the future of the winery hung in the balance. But he was so impressed with the wines he sampled, that he decided to continue production and add to the historic collection. Under the threat of Nazi invasion in 1941 the entire collection was packed up and taken out of Yalta to three secret locations. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Thu Dec 16 10:53:47 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:53:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Did everyone see the worm story on CBS news last night? It's a headline story today! Message-ID: <20041216185347.52571.qmail@web13626.mail.yahoo.com> He dropped out of Princeton to corner the market on worm waste. Crazy? Think again. Jim Axelrod reports on a man who is turning worm poop into the kind of green that comes from closing deals with Wal-Mart and Home Depot.... http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/eveningnews/main3420.shtml IBB ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Thu Dec 16 10:57:12 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:57:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] How the pentagon downplay the risks of DU weapons Message-ID: <20041216185712.8290.qmail@web13608.mail.yahoo.com> DANGER DISMISSED: How the Pentagon downplays the risks of depleted uranium weapons Uranium Dust Leaves a Trail dailypress.com December 12, 2004 http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du-day1super,0,588771.htmlstory?coll=dp-breaking-news While U.S. forces fight in the streets of Iraq, scientists are finding more evidence that the depleted uranium weapons we've given them to defeat the enemy are a hazard to friend and foe. The weapons, first used in the Persian Gulf War, provide a decided battlefield advantage. But the mildly radioactive toxic dust that results when they're used successfully also might be why veterans of the 1991 war have a disability rate three times as high as those for Vietnam and World War II vets. The Pentagon dismisses any link between those illnesses and depleted uranium. This week, the Daily Press takes an in-depth look at the latest science. You'll see why some experts think now is too soon to pull the plug on research into whether cancers and brain damage result from breathing the dust. You'll find out why the U.S. military uses an inferior process to identify whether our forces have depleted uranium in their bodies and how British vets are signing up for a better test. You'll meet Matt Rohman of York County, a Gulf War veteran who's lost all feeling in his feet and fingers, living every day in pain. Government doctors say his problems are related to the war, but they don't know how or why. Will a new generation of warriors meet the same fate? -- Posted for educational and research purposes only, ~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Thu Dec 16 11:56:58 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:56:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Bush Administration Threatens Success of 10-Year Wolf Recovery Message-ID: <20041216195659.93062.qmail@web13622.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/ Bush Administration Threatens Success of 10-Year Wolf Recovery Four weeks from now, January 12, marks the official 10-year anniversary for the return of the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park. While the resurgence of a wolf population in the lower 48 states is an historic wildlife conservation success, Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen warned this week that the reintroduction campaign will be in jeopardy if the Bush administration has its way. In a speech this week in Washington, DC, Schlickeisen described the many benefits of the campaign: not only the return of the gray wolf, but also ecological benefits, such as balancing the elk population and a consequent boom in willow and cottonwood tree growth. None of this would have been possible without the protections now being threatened by the Bush administration's Department of Interior. The wolves have already been reclassified from endangered to threatened on the national level, which in some cases has entirely removed protections. The Bush administration is also pushing for still weaker federal management of the wolves, via a shift to the state level. Defenders has filed a lawsuit against reclassification on the grounds that the wolf population has not fully recovered, and that the rule precludes recovery in additional habitat suitable for wolves. [1] In what Defenders calls an unscientific approach to wolf management, distinct regions are being designated in the U.S. without appropriate consideration being given to population goals for each region. For example, in the Northwest, population goals have been set for three states -- Idaho, Montana and Wyoming -- and six states are to be added to this new group without adjusting population goals for that region. In the Northeast, one recovery zone was created for the removal of protections even though no recovery efforts had been made in certain subsets of the Northeast recovery zone. As Schlickeisen told BushGreenwatch, "Wolves have made great progress in the last decade. Sadly, the Bush administration is rapidly becoming the wolf?s most dangerous predator. Its efforts to remove protections for the wolf, coupled with its unscientific approach to wolf management, pose the greatest threat today to the continued recovery of the wolf in this country." Wolf protections are also being attacked on a second front. In the Bush administration's efforts to rewrite section 10J of the Endangered Species Act, control of the wolves would be turned over to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming before federal delisting, and federal protections would be weakened before recovery goals were met. [2] Along with this policy move, state agencies would be allowed to kill wolves where there are declining elk populations, even if wolves are not proven to be the primary factor in the decline. People would also be allowed to kill wolves based only on personal beliefs that the wolves pose a threat to property. Defenders sees the Bush administration proposal as an opportunity for unnecessary killings and abuse of the rule. [3] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Thu Dec 16 12:51:49 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:51:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] The True Cost of Driving (An Oil Car) Message-ID: <20041216205149.93038.qmail@web13607.mail.yahoo.com> Cost of driving What would it cost to drive if the price tag of gas and cars included air pollution, road construction and maintenance; property taxes lost from land cleared for freeways; free parking paid for by taxes; noise and vibration damage to structures; protection of petroleum supply lines; sprawl and loss of transportation options; auto accidents; and congestion? A number of researchers have tried to answer this question, and John Holtzclaw of the Sierra Club profiled eight studies that, when averaged, estimated the true price of gas at $6.05 a gallon. Source: John Holtzclaw ?America's Autos On Welfare? Sierra Club As for vehicles, transportation analyst Todd Litman has calculated that the external costs of driving would add $42,363 to the sticker price of a shiny new car, based on a 12.5 year lifespan. Source: Todd Litman, ?Transportation Costs & Benefits,? June 2004 Here's a comprehensive yet highly readable discussion of driving externalities produced by Redefining Progress: Source: Beyond Gas Taxes: Linking Driving Fees to Externalities by Mark M. Glickman, March 2001 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! ? What will yours do? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Fri Dec 17 11:08:42 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:08:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Mark Morford: Come See Our Hideous Slab ( I give it 3 thumbs up) Message-ID: <20041217190842.92219.qmail@web13626.mail.yahoo.com> ===== Mark Morford's Notes & Errata ===== SFGate.com - December 17, 2004 --------------------------------- Come See Our Hideous Slab As the world swoons over France's soaring beauty of a bridge, S.F. gets slapped with an eyesore By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist And did you hear the one about how those gul-dang baguette-sucking antiwar French just completed work on this astounding new bridge, a soaring, airy, delicate thing erected in southern France, and it's all over the international press and the French people are justifiably proud and even the venerable Le Monde has deemed the new Millau bridge a "work of art," and the amazing pictures are being featured everywhere, for good reason? And you look at the photos and see the breathtakingly elegant architecture (it was built by the same company that did the Eiffel Tower) and you read about the bridge's world-record height and its classy designer, renowned British architect Norman Foster, the man who also designed the Millennium Bridge in London and who believes, crazily, that "works of man should fuse with nature," and his bridge is already being hailed as an instant landmark. The Millau. Its pillars poke the clouds and its design inspires the spirit and it will surely be a major tourist attraction for decades to come -- a fact that, of course, means little to most Americans, because most red-blooded patriots never venture past the Wal-Mart on the outskirts of their home state. But still .... (click here to read the rest) (Full URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2004/12/17/notes121704.DTL&nl=fix ) --------------------------------- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Fri Dec 17 16:38:10 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:38:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] StopTheWall.org in a Week.... Message-ID: <20041218003810.83038.qmail@web13606.mail.yahoo.com> THE GRASSROOTS PALESTINIAN ANTI-APARTHEID WALL CAMPAIGN WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTER StoptheWall.org in a Week from the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Dec 17, 2004 Israeli Apartheid?s Latest Stage Continues: Settlement Expansion in Jayyus, Demolitions in Jerusalem, Total Ghettoization in Tulkarem Latest News Occupation Continues Targeting Jerusalem: In Anata, Occupation Forces Demolish 3 Houses, 25 Bedouin Homes and Countless Animal Shelters On Monday, November 29, 2004, at 2:30 pm, Occupation Forces? military vehicles and bulldozers demolished three homes in the southwest section of the village of Anata, located northeast of Jerusalem. The house demolitions made 25 people homeless. At the same time, the Occupation Forces destroyed 25 Bedouin homes, together with their livestock shelters, in the southeast part of the village. [MORE] In Irtah and Far?un: Demolitions, Ghettoization, Settlement Industrial Zones and Environmental Devastation Above: A compound of Irtah houses with a total of 64 people totally isolated between the Wall and the industrial zone from one side, and the sandy new Occupation military road on the other side. The industrial zone is built on the village?s annexed and isolated lands behind the Wall. In the two villages of Irtah and Far?un, south of the city of Tulkarem, the Occupation Forces have continued their ongoing confiscation and demolition policies. In these villages, the most recent implementation of these policies show the Occupation plans for the total ghettoization of communities isolated by the Wall. [MORE] Community Voices Do the Wall?s Roots Start to Reveal Themselves? In September 2002, when the farmers in Jayyus found some hand written papers affixed onto their trees, they thought that these must be something that belongs somewhere else. Then, a few weeks later, they started to see bulldozers come to cut down their olive trees and destroy the land. A few months after that, the Wall started to be erected. [MORE] Analysis / Features The Carnivores and the Ivy League Apologist: The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers Ariel Sharon is surrounded by a coterie of "advisors" who step in to develop, perfect and sell plans for the continued and inexorable dispossession of the Palestinians. Despite lame denials by the Israeli government or their media surrogates, the public pronouncements of these latter day Dr. Strangeloves reveal the plans they have in store for the Palestinians, Iraqis, and for that matter, the United States. It is therefore instructive to analyze their latest statements. [ MORE ] PHOTOS Two Years in Jayyus Construction of the Apartheid Wall by Occupation Forces in the village of Jayyus, located in Qalqiliya district, began in October 2002. Beginning in October 2003, orders from the Occupation Forces stipulated that the inhabitants of Jayyus are prohibited from crossing into areas isolated by the Wall unless a ?permit? from the Occupation ?Civil Administration? is obtained. Now, in December 2004, Occupation Forces have begun constructing a new colonial settlement on these lands that have been isolated from the village by the Wall; if it is completed, this new settlement will cement the process of sealing the people of Jayyus into an impoverished ghetto. These photos document the struggle against the Apartheid Wall in Jayyus over the past two years. [MORE] Worldwide Activism In Norway, Protestors Demand: No Money for Apartheid, Boycott Israel Now On Wednesday, December 8, 2004, Norwegian activists representing Fellesutvalget for Palestina (Norwegian Association of NGO's for Palestine) and other groups staged a protest against Israeli Apartheid policies outside of the building where a conference of donor countries was being held in Oslo. [More] Spain: In Asturiana, a Human Wall in Solidarity with Palestine In Bego?a, Spain, activists commemorated the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29, 2004 with a human wall that was meant to symbolize their opposition to the Apartheid Wall that Israel is building in Palestine. [More] Coming Soon to www.stopthewall.org: New Map: The Campaign's latest map highlights the building of an Apartheid road system by Occupation Forces that will further isolate and devastate the Palestinian Bantustans created by the Wall. The map documents the completion of a set of Apartheid bypass roads that are only usable by settlers, together with a series of roads and tunnels for ?Palestinians only? (based on the racist ideology of Apartheid: ?we are above and they are below?). This racist system will force Palestinians to follow complicated and oftentimes impossible routes, further cutting off access and communication between the Bantustans created by the Apartheid Wall. The maps will also highlight the expansion of settlements on land isolated and confiscated by the Wall. The maps will be downloadable in PDF format, and are important tools for education and mobilization. Please read and download them and share them with your contacts. Be sure to read and use other recent additions to www.stopthewall.org including the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign's latest Fact Sheet, ?Apartheid in Palestine?Definition, History up to the Wall, and Tool for Mobilization? and an important analysis of the latest stage of Israeli Apartheid as it is embodied in the Wall, ?The Apartheid Wall: The Israeli Project for the Demise of Palestinian Life.? Keep checking back for other important daily updates at www.stopthewall.org. StopTheWall.org Visit the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign web site. --------------------------------- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Sat Dec 18 11:03:57 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 11:03:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Japan wants Polish air Message-ID: <20041218190357.94987.qmail@web13621.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.wbj.pl/?command=article&id=24987&type=wbj Japan wants Polish air >From Warsaw Business Journal Japanese seek to earn on Polish CO2 emission rights. Some 23 Japanese energy and steel enterprises have formed a group of potential investors in energy production in Poland. Businessmen from the land of the rising sun hope to produce renewable sources of energy in cooperation with Polish companies, most of them state-controlled. The cost of preliminary projects is estimated at $140 (z?.440) million. Energy producer and distributor J-Power will fund windmill energy and the Mizuho Financial Group is in a joint venture with the National Sugar Company to produce energy from biomass. But the Japanese have a more ambitious financial goal than just energy production. According to limits on CO2 emission set by the Kyoto Protocol, Poland will enjoy a significant, unused surplus of 100 million tonnes of gas. This means that the 945 registered Polish companies can earn as much as z?.294 million annually on trading the rights to emit greenhouse gases. By January 1, 2005 all EU members are required to establish a national supervisory institution which will administrate emission rights for companies. As soon as February 2005, rights for CO2 emission can be sold inside the EU. (B.K., Rzeczpospolita) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Sat Dec 18 11:36:20 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 11:36:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] 44% of Americans Support Restricting Muslims Rights Message-ID: <20041218193620.18477.qmail@web13607.mail.yahoo.com> 44% of Americans Support Restricting Muslims Rights http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121904Z.shtml ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! ? Try it today! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Sun Dec 19 21:04:02 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 21:04:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] =?iso-8859-1?q?Earthtimes=2Eorg_2004=92s_top_10_be?= =?iso-8859-1?q?st_scientific_achievements_?= Message-ID: <20041220050402.31251.qmail@web13604.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/909.html 2004?s top 10 best scientific achievements Which do you think was the most significant discovery of the year 2004? The discovery of Hobbit?s fossil, a mere two meter tall human who shared planet earth with modern human for thousands of years or is it the landing of NASA?s two rovers on Mars? Or is it the ability to clone human cells up to a level where cloned cells could be extracted from the embryo? Not so easy to choose, isn?t it? But Editors of the journal Science did it. The Science's list of ?2004 Breakthroughs? has the discovery made by NASA?s rovers at the No. 1 position. The rovers allowed the scientists to conclude that Mars definitely had water on its surface. And where there is water there can be life too. The two Mars rover have landed on the opposite side of the red planet and are closely examining the surface. The data sent by the rovers showed erosion patterns that had all the hallmarks of being carved by water. The top place is followed by the anthropological breakthrough by experts from the universities of Wollongong and New England, along with their Indonesian colleagues, of the so-called "Hobbit" fossils on the Indonesian island of Flores. The scientists had dug up and dated seven skeletons found in Liang Bua, a limestone cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. Hobbit is thought of a mutated off shoot on the Homo erectus species branch in the tree of human evolution. Next on the third position is the achievement of South Korean and American scientists at Seoul National University extracted who extracted stem cells from a cloned human embryo for using cloning technique for therapeutic applications. Fourth position was taken by achievement in cooling down of atoms to sub zero temperatures where the atoms almost cease to vibrate and virtually merge into each other behaving as super atom. In 1995, US scientists had achieved this state with the boson class of atoms; this year, American and Austrian researchers achieved it with the other broad class of atoms the fermions. Fifth place went to insight in Junk DNA. A large portion of DNA in eukaryotes does not code for proteins and was thought of as junk DNA. Not anymore. Biologists this year showed that junk DNA help genes to turn on at the right time and in the right place. Other than these top five, topics that appeared in the top ten list were: Discovery of binary system of pulsars by the Parkes radio telescope in NSW. The demonstration by World Conservation Union workshop that 30 per cent of the world's 5700 amphibian species were vulnerable to extinction. The structure of water with x-rays and electron beams gave surprising insights into how water molecules link together, how water ions behave, how water binds to silicon and how electrons and protons dissolve in water. Public-private partnerships between foundations have made a fundamental change in the way drugs are developed and delivered to the third world countries. The world of micro organisms is still untapped fully and there are millions of microbes just waiting to be discovered. US biologist Craig Venter has unleashed this wealth of hidden DNA knowledge to the world's genomic databanks. He announced in March that his team has discovered at least 1800 new species and more than 1.2 million new genes from the Sargasso Sea alone. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Jazz up your holiday email with celebrity designs. Learn more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Sun Dec 19 22:09:50 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 22:09:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] Source Page on the Environment Message-ID: <20041220060950.34080.qmail@web13607.mail.yahoo.com> Source Page on the Environment http://www.truthout.org/environment.shtml IBB ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Dress up your holiday email, Hollywood style. Learn more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca Sun Dec 19 22:20:47 2004 From: shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca (shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 22:20:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Shadow_Group] TIME Magazine Cover: Adolph Hitler, Man of the Year - Jan. 2, 1939 Ad Message-ID: <20041220062047.64835.qmail@web13603.mail.yahoo.com> TIME Magazine Cover: Adolph Hitler, Man of the Year - Jan. 2, 1939 Address:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archive/covers/0,16641,1101390102,00.html ++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP THE WALL++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www.stopthewall.org www.nad-plo.org www.hrw.org www.pal-arc.org www.endtheoccupation.org www.sustaincampaign.org --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: