Website / newspaper / journal / web based media updates: Feb 23rd - Mar 1st

by redjade Mon Feb 23, 2004 16:41

Minister Walsh addresses O.I.E. Global Conference on Animal Welfare in Paris

Mr Joe Walsh TD, Minister for Agriculture and Food, today addressed the Global Conference on Animal Welfare in Paris.  The Conference, which was organised by O.I.E. (International Animal Health Organisation) and runs from 23-25 February, was also addressed by EU Commissioner David Byrne, Minister Renate Kunast, the German Minister for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture and a number of other Ministers.  Delegates from around the world are attending this important Conference.


In the course of his address, Minister Walsh referred to the ongoing and legitimate demands from the general public for improved animal welfare standards and for appropriate frameworks to ensure that these are observed.  He acknowledged that animal welfare can be an emotive subject and that polarised positions are frequently adopted by the parties involved.  Such approaches are unhelpful and the best prospects for progress and positive development lay in identifying the common ground that existed and building on that.

As President of the Agriculture Council, the Minister said that one of his principal objectives is to reach agreement on the Commission's proposal for a Regulation on the welfare of animals during transport.  The Irish Presidency had undertaken intensive work already on this proposal and substantial technical progress had already .....

by redjade Mon Feb 23, 2004 19:11

username: salon password: tabletalk

It is misleading to call these Israeli policies. They are American-Israeli policies — made possible by unremitting United States military, economic and diplomatic support of Israel. This has been true since 1971 when, with American support, Israel rejected a full peace offer from Egypt, preferring expansion to security. In 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a two-state settlement in accord with an overwhelming international consensus. The two-state proposal has the support of a majority of Americans today, and could be enacted immediately if Washington wanted to do so.

At most, the Hague hearings will end in an advisory ruling that the wall is illegal. It will change nothing. Any real chance for a political settlement — and for decent lives for the people of the region — depends on the United States.

by redjade Mon Feb 23, 2004 19:50

If you ever wonder about Christiania?

This is the best most balanced article I have seen.

It aint anarcho-utopia, as some wish, but it is still something special.

And there are moves to shut it down...

by iosaf - staying up scandinavia way Thu Feb 26, 2004 13:03

Gothenborg EU summit 2001 was not really a happy event. The swedish authorities made a big mess of it, alienating their own young, radicalising both green and socialist parties and confirming the reputation of their police as nasty, violent and yobbish.
Amongst the mistakes made by the authorities that spring summer were the handling of the Reclaim the City event (a swedish RTS! collective) who were fired upon by the police using live rounds.

Previous to that on the14th of June, the Swedish police surrended the school of Hvitfeldtska and locked 650 lodgers in .
450 of these lodgers were deprived of their freedom for more than 12 hours and many were badly treated by the police.

Now as you know well in Ireland, we in the international RTS! family/squamily have really long memories. And we really resent any authoritarian attempt to further criminalise our movement, our method of protest, our calls to action. & we actively pursue according to our meagre resources law and security enforcement agencies who break the law maltreating those who have exercised their democratic, civil and human rights to continue "our cause". We feel this way because over years we see lots of youngsters move from their first creative street protest to useful careers in political activism playing a full role in the development of their societies and often writing jolly interesting theses, getting tippy toppy academic results and being _good People_. And we see lots of others make friends, feel better about themselves and learn what solidarity is about.

So If you were in Hvitfeldtska, or know anyone who was in Hvitfeldtska, then join the witness appeal.

€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

The former commander of the police of Gothenburg, Jaldung, was recently charged at the court of Gothenburg with depriving all these demonstrators of their freedom on this occasion,
But last week this commander-in-chief was acquitted of the charges on the basis that the court didn´t find it proved that any of the lodgers really was deprived of his or her freedom.

The Parliamentary Ombudsmen of Sweden, JO, are going to appeal against this verdict, and therefore they need testimonies from people who were locked up inside this school and who were refused to leave.

If this happened to you, please mail or fax a statement to:

Hans Lindberg
JO
Box 16327
S-103 26 Stockholm
Sweden
Tel: +46 8 786 5129
Fax +46 8 21 65 58

You may also email your testimony (preferably in English) from the homepage of the Parliamentary Ombudsmen (if you have Acrobat Reader installed)
http://www.jo.se/Page.asp?MenuId=13&ObjectClass=DynamX_Documents

Your complaint should contain short but detailed information on what happened when you tried to leave the school on the 14th of June 2001. For instance:
What did you say?
What did the police say and do?
Did the police stop you by force?
Anything that could prove that you really were locked in and denied to leave.

The statements should be at the office of JO before 27th of February.

IMPORTANT THINGS TO BEAR IN MIND:

* If the Parliamentary Ombudsmen consider your testimony important for the case they might call on you to interrogate you on what happened, so please include information on how you can be contacted.
* A complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsmen (JO) and the documents sent with it are in the public domain as soon as they are delivered. This means that anyone has the right to look at them unless they can be classified as confidential according to the Secrecy Act (details about the health of the complainant may, for instance, be classified as confidential)
* If an Ombudsman begins an inquiry into a complaint, the official concerned will be told who has made the complaint
* Anonymous complaints are not investigated by the Ombudsmen

Best wishes
Gerd Petterson (Parents of 2001 and the Network for democracy)
d.p at gerd.pp.se
and
Johan Rönnblom (Attac)
johan at attac.nu

by Swap shoppe Thu Feb 26, 2004 13:36

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/516/gr.html
Exodus from UK GR
SWP loses allies

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/516/borders.html
SWP liquidating Socialist Alliance for a non-socialist alliance

by R Isible Fri Feb 27, 2004 00:07

picture sez it all.

by eeekkk Fri Feb 27, 2004 01:16

http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/02/800507.shtml

by iosaf - down balkans way oh yes down down down. Fri Feb 27, 2004 11:03

Yesterday I left an appeal from the Swedish team seeking witnesses to Gothemborg 2001, I _had_ thought to leave this interesting little link:-
http://www.balkans.eu.org/article4129.html
but it's in french so I didn't. The gist is apparent destabilisation of what many consider to be Europe's weakest flank.
"The Balkans".
old hat you may say, very 20th century you may say, two serbian wars, two world wars, and the collapse of Yugoslavia, (two more wars). Nothing going wrong in the Balkans in 21st century. Oh no indeed not.
Today Bertie ( taoiseach, supreme rascal, man who knows a just war when he's up to his neck in it, man who knows an IRA man when he meets one, and of course President of the European Union) had an appointment with the head of government of Macedonia.
Mr Boris Trajkovski. He was due to arrive in Dublin this afternoon, to present his proposals for accession to the EU to Bertie.
Well he won't be because the plane he was travelling in crashed yesterday after losing contact with air control in Mostar, resulting in his death and "just to be sure" nine members of his goverment as well. ¿Where have you heard "mostar" before?

Now I'm not screaming "bloody conspiracy", as you know planes go down all the time, very unreliable way to travel, (perhaps more reliable than a chinook at times), but since I'm one of the best psi-types globally [who is not in the direct (or indirect) employ of either a government or corporative power], you may like to trust my instincts on this one.

If not you may like to check the suppliers of air traffic control equipment to Mostar.

Bertie is doing his best to familiarise himself with "things balkan and eastern mediterranean" and the general thrust of "euro-diplomacy" which unfortuanately the Irish play as big a rôle in as say the British play in US espionage, is the forthcoming reunification of Cyprus. I've been holding back on that one for a while, but will give you a report/analysis by Easter.

But one thing is now certain:-
troublesome Macedonia (troublesome for Greece and Turkey and many "US" interests) will not now be a member of the EU.

Here is it's cancellation notice:-

{SKOPJE, 26 FEBRUARY 2004 (MIC)-The Macedonian state delegation headed by Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski cancelled the filing of the application for EU membership in Dublin scheduled for today. The delegation returns to Macedonia immediately, announced A1 TV directly from Dublin. This information was reported by other electronic media based on unofficial sources.
A1 TV says that the Macedonian delegation in Dublin is greatly upset because of President Trajkovski's plane crash and the postponement of the application. The delegation heard the news of the tragedy immediately before they entered the hall where the ceremony of the filing should have taken place.
MIC will continue to report on the event on a regular basis.}
MIC are at the link-
http://www.makedonija.com

by iosaf - but one of a very a good & big team :-) Fri Feb 27, 2004 12:57

As far as I know, there has only been one case of terrorist use of WMD in the last ten years. And I used to try and point that out when I still had more energy for that sort of thing.
In case you've forgotten, the only case of WMD being used by a terrorist group was the Sarin attack on the Tokyo Metro March 20th 1995, which was carried out by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult led by Shoko Asahara.
He has just been sentanced to death by a Japanese court. (did you know Japan had the death penalty?)
news update:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,7369,1157654,00.html
background info:-
http://www.rickross.com/groups/asahara.html
http://www.who2.com/shokoasahara.html

one article of interest making the essential "Saddam Hussein & Shoko Asahara" comparison.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/apr2003/nf20030424_6126_db004.htm

WMD. this man developed and used them. In addition no public inquiry has been held into the alledged nuclear program at an AUM installation in Australia. = search OZ please Bertie.

by Michael Dempsey Sat Feb 28, 2004 03:26

New liberal media site takes the stage
A team of fresh-out-of-college progessives have teamed up to launch the liberal alternative to Drudge: The Raw Story (www.rawstory.com).
Two recent graduates have teamed up to create a vitally needed resource on the web: Drudge for liberals.

The site, titled The Raw Story (http://www.rawstory.com), launched just two weeks ago and has already been at the vanguard of breaking news. It broke a story linking the CIA and a GOP thinktank to the rebellion in Haiti. It took a critical look at the situation on the ground in Kirkuk, a city riven by an ethnic divide that roils Iraqi society-at-large.

And it proved it wasn't simply a liberally slanted outlet, by providing an insightful story into the background of Kerry's alleged 'war hero' status in Vietnam.

"It's really been an eye-opening experience," says John Byrne, one of the founders of the site. "In only two weeks we have two thousand people visiting the site from 51 different countries, and we've received a flood of email from those saying our site is desperately needed."

Byrne said he realized he was truly fed up when Drudge broke unsubstantiated rumors about a Kerry affair.

"It's time that someone stood up to Drudge," he remarked.

While relying largely on outside media outlets for stories (the site links to stories around the world), they've also managed to serve up a helping of fresh exclusive content. Editorials have flown in from London, San Francisco and Jerusalem. Topics range from Generation X to a S&M dungeon on Valentine's day.

"I can't believe how many people have volunteered to write," says Jesse Kanson-Benanav, another cofounder. "Though we haven't got the money to pay people right now, we've seen a tremendous amount of support simply in submissions."

Kanson-Benanav says Raw Story tries to find a balance between humor and gravitas. Though many of the stories are politically focused, others simply touch upon odd moments in the news.

"There's always something for everyone," he says.
Updated constantly, the site makes its home on the web at http://www.rawstory.com.

by :-) - oh it's that game. Sat Feb 28, 2004 15:05

established by the Imperial Westminister parliament by statute in the 20th century! the BBC has drawn on such enlightened bods as George Bernard Shaw to discuss proper pronunciation, over a million fresh out of college graduates and simply billions of satisfied listeners and viewers who have come to call it more than broadcasting service and more like a well loved asset.
If you'd like to share the BBC experience see a TV near you.

by susan riordan & davey garland - Pandora DU Research Project Sat Feb 28, 2004 16:30 thunderelf at yahoo dot co dot uk

The article investigates the level of political cover-up and double standards used by the US and British Governments over the issue of Depleted Uranium. Its also examines the new grass-roots initiative that are now challenging them to reveal the dangers of this deadly weapon
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=1487&blz=1

by bertiewatch Sat Feb 28, 2004 19:11

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by Caoimhin - Green Party Sun Feb 29, 2004 11:50

Documentary about Silvio Berlusconi tonight TG4 11.55pm 'Fíorscéal'
Fíorscéal
Citizen Berlusconi: Few politicians have managed to capture the public imagination quite so spectacularly as Silvio Berlusconi. He's a funny, charismatic and one of the most powerful men in Europe. A media mogul who happens to run a country. By law in Italy Berlusconi is actually forbidden from owning more than 20% of the country's media a restriction that has brought censure from the courts. His response - change the law. This documentary is a fascinating insight into Berlusconi's desperate maneuvering to avoid the Italian law.
[English subtitles on screen]

Fíorscéal 23.55
Citizen Berlusconi: Is beag polaiteoir atá in ann aird an phobail a tharraingt chomh maith is atá Silvio Berlusconi in ann é a dhéanamh. Tá sé greannmhar, tarraingteach agus tá sé ar dhuine de na polaiteoirí is cumhachtaí san Eoraip. Agus is fear gnó mór le rá sna meáin chumarsáide é. De réir an dlí san Iodáil ní féidir ag Berlusconi ach 20% de na meáin chumarsáide a bheith aige. Ach is é an réiteach a bhí ag Berlusconi air sin ná an dlí a athrú. Is léargas an-suimiúil é an clár faisnéise seo ar iarrachtaí Berlusconí iarmhairtí dhlí na hIodáile a sheachaint. (Athchraoladh)

by Carlyle connection Sun Feb 29, 2004 13:02

Doco on Network 2 at 8pm tonight about George bush sr and the carlyle group

see
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3995.htm

BUSH MONEY
worth setting the video for...