Writer Fights Zundel Subpoena
Author, judge object to taking stand at Holocaust denier's deportation hearing
By KIRK MAKIN
JUSTICE REPORTER
UPDATED AT 10:49 PM EDT Thursday, May. 6, 2004
A Federal Court of Canada judge showed no sympathy yesterday for an author fighting to stay off the witness stand at Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel's deportation hearing.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com
Zundel Lawyers Debate Subpoena of Top Judge
Canadian Press
TORONTO Lawyers in the Ernst Zundel deportation case wrangled Wednesday over whether a top Ontario judge who once represented the infamous Holocaust-denier should have to testify at his federal court hearing.
http://www.ctv.ca
'The Only Reason Everybody Has Their Tail Feathers in a Knot is Because I'm a Judge'
By KIRK MAKIN
JUSTICE REPORTER
Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - Page A5
An Ontario judge stunned a courtroom awaiting her testimony at Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel's deportation hearing yesterday by instead launching a bid to avoid testifying.
http://www.globeandmail.com
Columnist Jeff German: Vegas Has New Crime Element: Israeli Mob
WITH ITS FREE flow of cash and high-stakes gambling, Las Vegas has always been an attractive target of opportunity for organized crime.
http://www.lasvegassun.com
Jewish Agency Official Detained in New Zealand
By JPOST.COM STAFF
"Israelis are a nation of spies and drug dealers", according to New Zealand immigration officials speaking to the Jewish Agency treasurer Shai Hermesh upon his arrival there, reported Army Radio Saturday.
http://www.jpost.com
Austrians' Zeal for Native Son Schwarzenegger Fades
Outrage at support for death penalty, remark on Holocaust
Eric Geiger, Chronicle Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 5, 2004
Salzburg, Austria -- The man once proudly referred to as "our Arnie" has virtually become persona non grata in his own country after a wave of nationwide euphoria over native son Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California.
http://www.sfgate.com
Rabbi Big Influence on Governor
Their friendship promotes peace, leads to Israel trip.
By Margaret Talev -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, May 1, 2004
Rabbi Marvin Hier and Arnold Schwarzenegger forged an unlikely friendship 20 years ago, a Holocaust activist and an up-and-coming actor whose father was a Nazi soldier.
http://www.sacbee.com
Ex-Israeli Minister is Charged in Ecstasy Case
By Eric Silver in Jerusalem
10 May 2004
Israeli ministers are no strangers to the men in blue. Even Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, is being investigated on suspicion of taking bribes.
http://news.independent.co.uk
The Man Who is Rewriting History
By Lior Kodner
VILNIUS, Lithuania - Ten years ago, after 45 years of Soviet rule, the Holocaust came into the curriculum in Lithuania for the first time. "All the books that were published before then were very Soviet, and their aim was to strengthen the regime of the Soviet Union and not the historical facts," explains the head of the Foundation for Educational Change in Lithuania, Vytautas Toleikis. "In the Soviet textbooks, there was no topic called the Holocaust. They talked there about the slaughter of inhabitants of the Soviet Union. I still remember from my childhood that in villages and small towns in Lithuania where Jews were killed it says: `Here inhabitants of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were killed by Hitler's people and bourgeois nationalists who lived here.' Now these signs have been changed, and here too the Holocaust is studied in the fifth and sixth grades."
http://www.haaretz.com
Bush Under Fire From US Ex-Envoys
About 50 retired US diplomats have written to President George W Bush to criticise current American policy towards the Middle East.
The former US envoys complain that Mr Bush's approach is losing the US "credibility, prestige and friends".
http://news.bbc.co.uk
As Long as the Plan Contains the Magic Term 'Withdrawal', it is Seen as a Good Thing
Ilan Pappe warns that Israel is heading for disaster
The day after the assassination in Gaza of the Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, Yuval Steinitz was interviewed on Israeli radio. Steinitz is the Likud chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee in the Knesset. Before that he taught Western philosophy at the University of Haifa, where his epistemological world-view was shaped by romantic nationalists such as Gobineau and Fichte, who stressed purity of race as a precondition for national excellence. The translation of these European notions of racial superiority to Israel became evident as soon as the interviewer asked him about the government's plans for the remaining Palestinian leaders. Interviewer and interviewee giggled and agreed that the policy will be, as it should be, the assassination or expulsion of the entire current leadership: namely, all the members of the Palestinian Authority - about forty thousand people. 'I am so happy,' Steinitz said, 'that the Americans have finally come to their senses and are fully supporting our policies.'
http://lrb.co.uk
Bush's Failed Mideast Policy is Creating More Terrorism
By U.S. Senator Ernest F. Hollings
Originally published in the Charleston Post and Courier
May 6, 2004
With 760 dead in Iraq and over 3,000 maimed for life, home folks continue to argue why we are in Iraq -- and how to get out.
http://hollings.senate.gov
U.S. Army Report on Iraqi Prisoner Abuse
Executive summary of Article 15-6 investigation of the 800th
Military Police Brigade by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
NBC News
Updated: 8:59 p.m. ET May 04, 2004
The following is the text of the executive summary of the Taguba report with only the names of some witnesses removed for the sake of privacy.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com
Inside the Cells of Abu Ghraib
The CIA Privatized Torture
By KURT NIMMO
Damn video and digital cameras.
If not for the availability of these electronic devices, it is possible the world would have never viewed -- to its collective disgust -- the images of the hideous events that took place in the murky depths of the Abu Ghraib military prison.
http://www.counterpunch.com
Torture as Normalcy
As American as Apple Pie
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Torture's back in the news, courtesy of those lurid pictures of exultant Americans laughing as they torture their Iraqi captives in a prison run by the US military outside Baghdad. Apparently it takes electrodes and naked bodies piled in a simulated orgy to tickle America's moral nerve ends. Kids maimed by cluster bombs just don't do it any more. But torture's nothing new. One of the darkest threads in postwar US imperial history has been the CIA's involvement with torture, as instructor, practitioner or contractor. Since its inception the CIA has taken a keen interest in torture, avidly studying Nazi techniques and protecting their exponents such as Klaus Barbie. The CIA's official line is that torture is wrong and is ineffective. It is indeed wrong. On countless occasions it has been appallingly effective.
http://www.counterpunch.com
-- Repeating History Flashback 1920 --
22 August, 1920
A Report on Mesopotamia by T.E. Lawrence
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ex.-Lieut.-Col. T.E. Lawrence,
The Sunday Times, 22 August 1920
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Mr. Lawrence, whose organization and direction of the Hedjaz against the Turks was one of the outstanding romances of the war, has written this article at our request in order that the public may be fully informed of our Mesopotamian commitments.]
The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster.
http://www.lib.byu.edu
Analysis: Withdrawal on the Cards?
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent
Events in Iraq have been spinning out of control - and out of control of the spinners - so fast on so many fronts that the W word - withdrawal - is now being mentioned.
Charles Heyman, senior defence analyst for Jane's Consultancy Group, wrote in the London Times on Monday:
"It begins to look as though there is going to be a rather messy political solution to the whole affair, possibly brokered by the United Nations.
http://news.bbc.co.uk
Is the War Party Embarrassed by its Own Handiwork?
by Anthony Gregory
When confronted with the photographs of abuse and humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, President Bush’s first reaction was to call the spectacle "abhorrent," and to admit in the non-committal passing tone that "mistakes are made." Luckily, and also passively, Bush assured us that "people will be brought to justice."
http://www.lewrockwell.com
The S&M War
Are the Abu Ghraib photos 'wanton' acts of deranged individuals – or the very latest in 'black propaganda'?
by Justin Raimondo
The pictures just keep coming at us: the latest batch of Iraqi humiliation photos appeared this [Thursday] morning in the Washington Post, along with a story revealing that the newspaper has come into possession of "more than 1,000" images, a mix of ordinary "travelogue" shots and depictions of Iraqis in various states of naked prostration. Iraqi prisoners squirm on the prison floor in the buff, clotted together like worms on a wet sidewalk, while burly American guards loom over them, poking and prodding; a female soldier holds a leash at the other end of which is an Iraqi neck. These images, avers the Post, are "further visual evidence of the chaos and unprofessionalism at the prison," and one is initially inclined to concur.
http://www.antiwar.com
Soldier: Unit's Role Was to Break Down Prisoners
Reservist Tells of Orders From Intelligence Officers
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 8, 2004; Page A01
There were no rules, by her account, and there was little training. But the mission was clear. Spec. Sabrina D. Harman, a military police officer who has been charged with abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said she was assigned to break down prisoners for interrogation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Early Alarm Bells Sounded, Ignored
Abuse reports began almost at war's start
Peter Slevin, Robin Wright, Washington Post
Saturday, May 8, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
Washington -- Months before Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld publicly acknowledged the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, top U.S. officials and several international human rights organizations repeatedly warned the Defense Department to halt the mistreatment of detainees.
http://sfgate.com
Why Torture Must Lead to Defeat
As history has revealed all too clearly, when soldiers become brutalised the moral struggle is lost, writes Anthony Sampson.
Sunday May 9, 2004
The Observer
The danger that both America and Britain would become corrupted by the use of torture was predictable as soon the twin towers in New York were destroyed on 11 September, 2001. 'We must make sure that in our war against brutal enemies,' I wrote soon afterwards, 'we are not ourselves brutalised.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk
e-democracy
Diana Thorp
MAY 04, 2004
WHEN a woman on the other side of the world was sentenced to death by stoning, Australians were among millions who used the internet to protest against the punishment. A worldwide e-petition promoted by Amnesty International led to more than six million responses including email messages, letters and faxes being sent to relevant authorities, AI Australia spokeswoman Suzi Clark says.
http://australianit.news.com.au
Halliburton Pulling the Plug on GI Communications
A week after a scandal broke involving photos of American troops torturing Iraqi prisoners, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, & Root is pulling the plug on private electronic communications with the folks back home, apparently at the request of the Department of Defence.
http://www.kathryncramer.com
How the Word Gets Around
By Daniel Terdiman
02:00 AM May. 07, 2004 PT
The blogosphere has a strange ability to push a seemingly obscure idea into the forefront of people's minds in a heartbeat. How this happens is a bit of a mystery. Sam Arbesman wanted to know how it works, so he created a meme and set it loose.
http://www.wired.com
Anti-Censorship Web Service Censors Itself
15:24 04 May 04
NewScientist.com news service
A web-proxy service set up by the US government's International Broadcasting Bureau to enable websurfers in Iran to evade censorship is itself massively censoring what they can see.
http://www.newscientist.com
Extremist and Hate Websites Rise by 300 Percent
May 07 2004
by Jo Best
But total number of internet users has shot up too
Websites expressing extremist, racist or religious-hate views have shown a huge increase since the start of this year, according to new figures.
http://networks.silicon.com
Church to Remove Moor-Slayer Saint
A statue in a Spanish cathedral showing St James slicing the heads off Moorish invaders is to be removed to avoid causing offence to Muslims.
Cathedral authorities in the pilgrim city of Santiago de Compostela, on Spain's north west coast, plan to move the statue to the museum.
http://news.bbc.co.uk
Should We Silence the BNP at Election Time?
May 4 2004
Chris Brown Sets Out A Political Poser
THE Daily Post revealed last week that the BNP would field more local candidates in Merseyside and Cheshire than ever before.
http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk
In Australia, City Council Moves to Remove Anti-Israel Art Exhibit
By Henry Benjamin
SYDNEY, Australia, May 5 (JTA) Melbourne’s city council has withdrawn financial support to an organization that promotes emerging artists following the exhibition of a virulently anti-Israel work.
http://www.jta.org
Oklahoma Prisoners to Be Tracked Using GPS
Saturday, May 08, 2004
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. Oklahoma’s governor has signed a controversial bill into law calling for the early release of state prisoners. But there’s a catch those qualified for early release will be required to wear a global positioning satellite (search) system ankle bracelet at all times.
http://www.foxnews.com
Scanner Set to Lay Bare the Secrets of Air Travellers
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
10 May 2004
It may sound like a gadget from a futuristic film but the full body scanner, which sees straight through people's clothing, is coming soon to airports in the UK.
http://news.independent.co.uk
Amnesty Denounces Peacekeepers Over Kosovo Sex Slavery
By Vesna Peric Zimonjic in Belgrade
07 May 2004
Sexual slavery involving girls as young as 11 has grown into a massive industry in the Balkans, because of demand for their services from the 40,000 international peacekeepers from Nato and the United Nations in Kosovo.
http://news.independent.co.uk
Nato Force 'Feeds Kosovo Sex Trade'
Ian Traynor in Zagreb
Friday May 7, 2004
The Guardian
Western troops, policemen, and civilians are largely to blame for the rapid growth of the sex slavery industry in Kosovo over the past five years, a mushrooming trade in which hundreds of women, many of them under-age girls, are tortured, raped, abused and then criminalised, Amnesty International said yesterday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk
Diebold Finds E-Voting Business Stormy
NewsMax Wires
Monday, May. 10, 2004
NORTH CANTON, Ohio -- After the Florida punch-card debacle hurt the credibility of the last presidential election, ATM maker Diebold Inc. decided it should expand into electronic voting. But Diebold has yet to realize large rewards for its shift into electronic voting.
http://www.newsmax.com
Diebold Sorry it Got Caught
Diebold Apologizes for Device Flaws
Tri-Valley Herald
It is an uncommon day when the nation's second-largest provider of voting systems concedes that its flagship products in California have significant security flaws and that it supplied hundreds of poorly designed electronic-voting devices that disenfranchised voters in the March presidential primary.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com
America in 2050: Another Country
Posted: March 24, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
In 1960, when JFK defeated Nixon, America was a nation of 160 million, 90 percent white and 10 percent black, with a few million Hispanics and Asians sprinkled among us.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com
Don’t Protect ManufacturingDeregulate!
5/6/04
by Jude Blanchette
Many people believe that the shift of "American jobs" to the developing world is a market failure requiring government intervention. Profit-seeking corporate CEOs seek to minimize costs by shipping production to countries with a seemingly endless supply of cheap labor. This exports jobs or drives down domestic wages, allegedly importing Third World conditions to America.
http://www.fee.org
Giant Masks Reveal Early Maya Sophistication
13:02 05 May 04
NewScientist.com news service
Giant masks of fang-toothed gods found in lowland Guatemala show sophisticated Mayan culture had spread across the region hundreds of years earlier than thought.
http://www.newscientist.com
"Sagas" Portray Iceland's Viking History
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
May 7, 2004
Filled with larger-than-life heroes and epic battles, they may be the most accessible of all medieval literature and a source of inspiration to classic authors like J.R.R. Tolkien.
Yet many people have never heard of the Icelandic sagas.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com
My Culture Right or Left
Archaeologist Francis Pryor explains how his growing admiration for the ancient Britons led to the realisation that the British had done to its colonies what the Romans did to Britain.
http://www.channel4.com
Coins Reveal How Hannibal Bankrupted the Romans
Scientific analysis of Roman coins in the British Museum has provided new evidence that Hannibal, the audacious Carthaginian general, nearly bankrupted the Roman state during the Second Punic War in the late 3rd century BC.
http://www.britarch.ac.uk
NASA Funds Sci-Fi Technology
By Noah Shachtman
02:00 AM May. 07, 2004 PT
For 25 years, Ross Hoffman has had a vision: to use tiny changes in the environment to alter the paths of hurricanes, slow down snow storms and turn dark days bright.
http://www.wired.com
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