SPINWATCH-Ecuador-FARC links increasing: US think-tank http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/8047--us-think-tank-denounces-ecuadors-links-to-farc.html

A U.S.-based think-tank has published a report expressing concern over Ecuador's ties to the FARC, and the Andean nation's growing reputation as neutral meeting ground for drug traffickers.The International Assessment and Strategy Center's (IASC) report states that Ecuador's geographic position and its adoption of the U.S. dollar have "made it a vulnerable and attractive crossroads for transnational non-state armed groups."

"These factors, taken together with the changing internal situation in Colombia and the expanding influence of the Mexican drug cartels have, over the past three years, helped turn Ecuador into an important and growing center of operations for transnational organized criminal gangs," the report explains.

The IASC report also recognizes "the significant growth of FARC drug trafficking networks through Ecuador, driven by the guerrillas' increasing dependence on the cocaine trade for financing and the Colombian military's success in pushing the rebels out of the center of the country toward the border regions with Ecuador and Venezuela."According to IASC, the FARC is becoming increasingly dependant on Ecuador as a source of food, medicine and weapons.

comment-blah blah blah blah blah...look whos behind this us think tank...About IASC http://www.strategycenter.net/about/         IASC is a "think-tank" focused on medium and long-term security issues and their impact on the security of the United States and her key allies. IASC is supported by foundations, universities, corporations and private donors, and by contract work performed for the U.S. Government.IASC’s uses methods pioneered by Shell Oil and the Office of Net Assessment in the Department of Defense, both of which IASC principals have worked with.

IASC participates in defense policy forums with other research organizations such as: National Defense University, American Enterprise Institute, Hudson Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, Heritage Foundation, American Foreign Policy Council, Aspen Institute-Berlin, FBI Academy-Quantico, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response.  

Arthur Waldron http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Arthur_Waldron

He is also vice president of the International Assessment and Strategy Center (www.strategycenter.net) in Washington, D.C  Dr. Waldron is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and for seven years Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Jamestown Foundation.

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UNICEF: Colombia's children live in dire poverty  http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/8045-unicef-colombias-children-live-in-dire-poverty.html

UNICEF named Colombia as one of 28 countries where children are living in dire poverty, in its "Humanitarian Action Report 2010," released Thursday.The children's advocacy group called for $1.2 billion to help women and children in Colombia, as well as 27 other countries including Afghanistan, North Korea and Ethiopia. Haiti is the only other Latin American country that UNICEF identified as urgently needing funds.According to UNICEF, 18,000 children under the age of five die every year in Colombia.

comment-now see in venezuela below....

At a glance: Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)Real lives Venezuela “injects” peace, love and understanding http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/venezuela_18997.html

An innovative campaign to ease the socio-political tensions that have been ripping apart Venezuelan society is showing excellent results nationwide since its launch early last year. “Doses of Love for Peaceful Coexistence” has already raised awareness in more than 100,000 people about their individual behaviour and attitudes towards those who think differently. The idea behind “Doses” was to use the already familiar procedure of immunization – but these are purely symbolic vaccinations-using jelly beans, chocolates or drops of honey as “vaccines”- targeting everyone from children to adults. These participants are then "immunized" against intolerance and violence as a way of resolving conflicts.  The campaign is reaching into communities, schools and the media, and it is raising important issues and provoking constructive discussions. And just like a regular innoculation – the process sometimes may sting slightly, but the pay-off is worth the initial discomfort.

Voices of Venezuela praise the campaign The general public has favourably received the campaign. “It is difficult to live in peace, but we have to do something,” said one 17-year-old girl outside of the metro station in the Plaza Venezuela. A 60-year-old woman passing by the same station commented, too.” God bless you, there is still faith…thank you,” she said. Even younger children recognize the importance of peace. “I have to make sure my friends treat each other well, but we have to also treat [others] as intelligent people,” said a seven-year-old girl standing in the Chacaito metro station.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Barrio_Adentro

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THIS IS AMUST READ!!!!DRC’s magic dust: Who benefits? http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61992

Khadija Sharife looks at how commercial and political interests in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral and natural resources have shaped the country’s history, with devastating consequences for its people, wildlife and environment. Will a new concession with China enable the Congolese to ‘really feel what all that copper, cobalt and nickel is good for’, as President Joseph Kabila says, or will the country continue to be seen as ‘a resource-rich bargain bin, open for business’?Yet in the DRC, the resource-rich fragmented underbelly of Central Africa and home to an estimated US$24 trillion in known mineral resources, the only gorilla that stands a chance of winning is the 800 pound gorilla – so named in Africa for the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

China Exim’s loans will pass exclusively through Chinese hands, circumventing the possibility of illicit flight on the part of the Congolese state. Congolese President Joseph Kabila, son of former DRC President Laurent Kabila, described the deal as crucial to the development of the DRC, stating: ‘The Chinese banks are prepared to finance our Five Works (water, electricity, education, health, and transport). For the first time in our history, the Congolese will really feel what all that copper, cobalt and nickel is good for.

’ These works include 145 health centres, 20,000 council flats, 31 hospitals, 49 water distribution centres as well as expanded water supplies, four universities and a parliament building. China has also pledged to build 4,000 kilometres of tarred road (prior to Chinese activities, just 200 kilometres existed) in addition to 3,200 kilometres of railway systems).

Approximately 50 per cent of loans from China Exim were directed toward the continent, incentivising South- South trade and investment. For this reason, in addition to the necessity of a counterweight, China’s potential as a developing-country investor levels the playing field, shifting investment goals from ‘returns’ to that of ‘access.’ (Africa’s biggest investors however – at 20 per cent – are other African nations.) How well did the DRC and ‘system d’ regions – resource-rich regions located on the peripheries – fare under the conventional system?

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The new American imperialism in Africa http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62008

Michael Schmidt reveals the alarming extent of American military expansion in Africa. This article was written four years ago, but still holds strong relevance today in the context of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM).http://www.africom.mil/Schmidt describes three avenues that the US is taking to increase its military foothold in Africa in pursuit of its ‘War on Terror’: ‘piggybacking’ off already strong French military presence,

creating an unofficial ‘School of the Africas’ in the guise of the African Centre for Strategic Studies, and with its Africa Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) programme ‘aimed at integrating African armed forces into US strategic (imperialist) objectives’.

Schmidt goes places blame beyond the US, however, and uncovers the role that African countries, particularly South Africa, are playing in strengthening US military presence through ‘secret pacts’. In light of all this, Schmidt concludes with a warning: ‘It would be naïve to think that bourgeois… will protect the working class, peasantry and poor from state terrorism.’

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Sherwood Ross: WHY IS AMERICA IN SO MANY WARS? http://www.uruknet.info/?p=62870

America is "a nation that seeks war" and if it doesn’t change it could end up destroying itself, a law school dean warns.Given all the wars the United States has waged, "It is preposterous but true that we do not see ourselves as a nation that seeks war," writes Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.

"We see ourselves as a peace loving nation" and that message is constantly drummed into the public by government and media.Since World War Two, an indisputably necessary conflict, Velvel points out the U.S. has fought the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, secret wars in Laos and Cambodia, the First Gulf War, Afghanistan, and the Second Gulf War in Iraq. It has also invaded, bombed or "quarantined" Panama, Grenada, Cuba, Haiti, Somalia, the Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia and Libya, and has "declared" a global war on terrorists.

"If the United States were a man instead of a country, we would say he must be schizophrenic, or at minimum deeply mentally disturbed, to believe he is peace loving in the face of a record like this", Velvel writes in "The Long Term View," a journal of informed opinion published by his law school.Velvel further notes the U.S. today spends more on military than perhaps all the rest of the world put together and definitely more than the next 21 highest-spending nations combined, including China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Israel.

comment-also see...American Military History  http://www.historyguy.com/american_military_history.html  Timeline of United States military operations  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations  American Involvement in Wars from Colonial Times to the Present  http://americanhistory.about.com/library/timelines/bltimelineuswars.htmEdwin Starr - WAR (live in TV Show)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv5BYEOQYLo  Kris Kristofferson 'In The News'  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rxm17Soz3c  TIMZ - Iraq (www.myspace.com/timz)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRiy4yfh-IM&eurl=http://www.timzonline.com /vid1.html Buffy Sainte-Marie performs "Universal Soldier" for Veterans  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27x25sdW9wQ

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A day for the “false positives” suspects http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1320

Last week Colombia’s most-circulated newspaper, El Tiempo, ran an article with a rather outrageous headline:“Clowns, Aromatherapy and Suckling Pig for the 46 Soldiers Charged with ‘False Positives’”The article details an event, hosted by the Colombian armed forces’ human rights department, held to attend to dozens of Colombian soldiers recently released from prison. The soldiers, who still await trial, are accused of participating in a plot to kidnap young men in the poor Bogotá suburb of Soacha, kill them, and then present their bodies as those of armed-group members killed in combat, thus reaping rewards.

The Soacha “false positives” scandal, which came to light in September 2008, shocked Colombia and those who carry out Colombia policy here in Washington. As a result it was very troubling to see, in January, nearly all of the defendants released from preventive detention after a court determined that the pre-trial procedures had taken too long. Though the judicial delays were largely caused by defense lawyers’ maneuvers and efforts to move the cases to more lenient military courts, the soldiers were let out of jail and immediately confined to a base in Bogotá.There, El Tiempo reports, the soldiers were given a day with their families, who were brought from all over Colombia to see them.The event started at 8:00am with a Catholic Mass attended by two generals of the institution, followed by a conference held by several psychologists.

Around mid-morning, the soldiers were separated from their families: the uniformed personnel were taken to one of the casinos, decorated with candles and aromatherapy scents. According to one person who attended the event, they then had a long relaxation and meditation therapy.Simultaneously, the wives, mothers and sisters of the militaries received a ‘spa’ treatment in the other casino. They got facials, massages and hair dyes done by a renowned beauty brand. Meanwhile, the children were entertained by a group of clowns.

comment-also see.."Body count mentalities": Colombia's "False Positives" Scandal http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB266/index.htm

'False positives' scandal continues to plague Colombian army http://www.impunitywatch.com/impunity_watch_south_amer/2009/07/false-positives-scandal-continues-to-plague-colombian-army.html

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CHILE: Activists Fear Setbacks Under Rightwing Government http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50207

Trade unions and non-governmental organisations in Chile are worried that rightwing billionaire Sebastián Piñera's election as president will mean setbacks in terms of social policy and respect for labour and social rights.Statements by the conservative president-elect, who triumphed in the Jan. 17 runoff vote, with regard to overhauling state-owned enterprises to boost efficiency and adopting policies aimed at increasing economic growth, sparked concern among the labour movement, environmentalists, indigenous peoples' associations and other social organisations. 

His campaign pledges also worried the centre-left "Concertación" or Coalition for Democracy, which lost its hold on power for the first time in 20 years. To judge by the Harvard-educated airline magnate's pro-business campaign platform, strikes, protests and social tension will increase over the next five years, Álvaro Ramis, president of the Chilean Association of NGOs (ACCION), told IPS. Especially given the fact that part of the Chilean right still identifies with the 1973-1990 de facto regime of late dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who died in 2006. Some 3,000 people were killed or forcibly disappeared and nearly 30,000 were tortured under the dictatorship. 

"I believe there is an emotional aspect (in the NGOs' concerns), awakened, for example, by seeing 'Pinochetistas' in Piñera's rallies justifying and legitimising human rights abuses," said Ramis. There are fears that such influences and the president-elect's neoliberal positions will lead to a major conservative shift in policy direction in areas like education, health, labour, the environment and women's and indigenous rights, which in Ramis's view would bring increased social unrest. Activists say one of the most vulnerable areas is labour. Trade unionists are concerned that the future administration will not only turn a deaf ear towards workers' demands, but could even roll back acquired rights. 

"One thing they will do for sure is speed up the move towards labour market flexibilisation. I believe we will see setbacks there," said Ramis.There are fears that such influences and the president-elect's neoliberal positions will lead to a major conservative shift in policy direction in areas like education, health, labour, the environment and women's and indigenous rights, which in Ramis's view would bring increased social unrest. Activists say one of the most vulnerable areas is labour. Trade unionists are concerned that the future administration will not only turn a deaf ear towards workers' demands, but could even roll back acquired rights. 

"One thing they will do for sure is speed up the move towards labour market flexibilisation. I believe we will see setbacks there," said Ramis. The Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT), Chile's largest labour federation, announced that it planned to fight, "with all our strength, against anything considered harmful to what we represent."In Olivares' view, the challenge is for the country's trade unions to have the capacity to present a united front. "To confront a government of business leaders and the right, the trade union movement cannot be divided. We at least need to have mechanisms for coordination, joint action and a united front, in order to best deal with the dangers and whatever situations may lie ahead," said the labour leader.

comment-Sebastián Piñera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastián_Piñera

 José Piñera (a former Minister of Labour under Augusto Pinochet

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RIGHTS-GUATEMALA: The Best-Kept Secrets - the Military's http://www.insidecostarica.com/special_reports/2010/2010-02/guatemala_rights_military.htm

GUATEMALA (IPS) - Human rights groups are worried that the declassification of military archives dating from Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war, which left more than 200,000 victims, by a special commission will not go far enough in terms of clarifying the atrocities.In March 2009, centre-left President Álvaro Colom established the Military Archive Declassification Commission, made up of three representatives of the Defence Ministry, one delegate from the Presidential Human Rights Commission, and three representatives of presidential secretariats.

According to the agreement that gave rise to the commission, its mandate is to sort out and file military documents on national security affairs involving the 1954 to 1996 period. (In 1954, a coup d'etat organised by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) overthrew democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz, ushering in decades of military dictatorship.)The agreement also gave Colom the authority to decide not to declassify documents "that qualify as pertaining to national security in the president's judgment."Other countries in Latin America have also begun to take steps to declassify military records to shed light on human rights abuses committed during periods of dictatorship.

comment-a must read!!!!

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Bolivia Decries Foreign Military Bases http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/february/04/latam-10020404.htm

LA PAZ - Bolivian President Evo Morales denounced on Wednesday the presence of foreign military bases in the region as a real threat to peoples'' sovereignty. At the inauguration ceremony of the Armed Forces academic year in southern La Paz, Morales said that in view of that new offensive of the empire, we need to raise the dignity of Bolivians and their social forces.

In this regard, in an obvious reference to the United States, he called for building a new military doctrine amid foreign attacks under the pretext of fighting terrorism or drug trafficking.Morales said that the real objective of the presence of these military facilities of the empire is to monopolize again natural resources in Latin America, threatening with death left wing governments and checking the growing process of change.

He urged Armed Forces members to launch a national and international crusade for the rights of the Pachamama (Mother Earth), affected by the interests of the transnationals, which pollute the planet only to achieve their commercial benefits.He recalled that nearly 15,000 delegates from the five continents are expected to discuss these issues at the world summit of the peoples on climate change to be held in Cochabamba in April.The meeting is a Morales' initiative in the wake of the failure of the 15th Conference on the issue held in Copenhagen (Denmark) last year.

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Four Injured in Air Force Bombing in Northern Colombia http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2349-four-injured-in-air-force-bombing-in-northern-colombia

An Indigenous group in Northern Colombia that suffered a bomb attack on Sunday is claiming that the bombing is linked to the interests of a US mining company. In a communiqué,http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/sites/mediacoop.ca/files2/mc/caso%20bombas%20de%20jiguamiando.pdf

the Association of Indigenous Councils of Antioquia (OIA) explain that in the early morning of January 30 after flyovers and shootings from an airplane, bombs were dropped from a helicopter, one of which hit a house occupied by five people in the town of Alto Guayabal. Four people were injured, including a 20-day-old baby. The OIA claim that the bombing may be linked to community resistance to mining exploration. 

"The resistance of the communities located in the reserve and the areas of the mining project has brought attention and harassment by the Muirel (sic) Mining Corporation and the army on various occasions," reads the release from the OIA.  The Colombian Air Force claimed that there were no civilans in the area, only members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). 

"In the area there was no (Indigenous) homes. In the area there was a corn storage area where 25 FARC terrorists were hidden," Air Force General Jorge Ballesteros told journalists yesterday. His words ring hollow after the "false positives" scandal http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8038399.stmwhere thousands of civilians killed by the army were later dressed up to look like guerrillas. 

Denver Colorado based Muriel Mining is involved in a joint venture with Rio Tinto to develop an gold mining project in the Murindó reserve, occupied by Indigenous Embera and Afro Colombian people. The project has already come under fire for neglecting prior government consultation with local commnunities, for the militarization of the region http://elotrorostrodelamineria.nireblog.com/post/2009/09/16/colombia-cerros-sagrados-en-riesgo-por-operaciones-militares-y-minerasand for ongoing deforestation. 

In February 2009, 1,500 community members from this area joined together in the first popular referendum http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9135against mining in Colombia and voted "no" to the proposed mining project in their territory.

Chavez is an enemy of press freedom? http://alainet.org/active/35935&lang=pt

The recently adopted sanctions against RCTVI (Caracas Television Network International) and five other cable channels gave rise to strong wave of accusations against Chavez. A flood of articles and editorials was released to the public acusing him as an enemy of press freedom. The conservative media, as is  scrambles the information to better articulate its climb against Chavez. The reasons that led to punitive measures are omitted or manipulated.The six stations suspended had  violated several provisions (obligations to official networks, educational programs, national symbols, age rating and so on). Three of these acknowledged irregularities and pledged to correct it: immediately returned to the air. The others have the same chance. No channel was closed or seized.

Even some progressive sectors, however, were shaken by these events. Many good people, after all, react as if the issue of press freedom was sacred. Of those about which there can be only one opinion possible: the other would be authoritarian or, at best, outdated.The dogma created by the media plutocracy combines a robust democratic flag with the private ownership of the means to accomplish it. Freedom of the press, for these ladies and gentlemen, is the unlimited right of owners of media to misuse it at will, and manage information and entertainment. Any dispute or regulation of this godlike  franchise is then labelled  posing  a threat to democracy.But what if the democratic transformation of a public good (the right to inform and be informed) is a monopoly of private corporations,oligrach  families or individuals? when  is freedom possible when the instruments of communication and culture have their control originated from private economic power?

The scientific-technical revolution of recent decades has made the information and its means a de facto power. Its expansion was sponsored by governments and business groups, whose direct or indirect association with the owners of those vehicles ,leveraged for  the barons  major political, cultural and economic development and goals on a large scale.Venezuelans now have a menu of newspapers, magazines and media and plural wider than at any time in its history. Many social organizations and communities have government support to break the dictatorship of economic power and create the material conditions for the emergence of new vehicles.

In addition to keeping open the doors of the opposition press, despite its recurrent constitutional violations, the Chávez government has given life to an important network of community radio stations, facilitated the creation of new television channels, advertising directed the state to independent newspapers and magazines. It is no small thing. The Venezuelan president, in fact, it is not a friend of the same freedom of the press trumpeted the media plutocracy. Provides service to democratic ideas, however, to identify the private monopoly and deregulated communication the biggest obstacle to the right to inform and be informed. Breno Altman is a journalist and editor of brazilian Opera Mundi media (www.operamundi.com.br)

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Venezuelan authorities investigate Colombian paramilitary leader ties http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/february/03/latam-10020304.htm

Inside Costa Rica: Venezuelan authorities are investigating into probable ties in this country to deported Colombian paramilitary leader Oscar Ospino, said Minister of Interior and Justice Tareck El Aissami.Though the inquiry does not link him directly to criminal activities in this territory, we are investigating any possible connection with other paramilitaries, El Aissami told Prensa Latina. He added that Ospino's capture in the state of Miranda ratifies the validity of Venezuelan claims about the presence here of Colombian irregular groups.It is yet another proof of permanent aggressions from Colombia to destabilize and spread panic.

According to El Aissami, the leader of the violent United Self-Defenses and direct collaborator of a paramilitary leader known as Jorge 40 acted with impunity in Colombia and had links there with police and military officers. "He had to be captured here in Venezuela," said El Aissami from the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service heliport, where he led the deportation of Ospino and two international drug dealers (also Colombian Salomon Camacho and French Jean Marie Bonnamy).

Bogota holds him responsible for crimes including homicide, forced disappearance and assembly to commit crime.At least 2,700 crimes have been attributed to him, including massacres and assassination of union and rural leaders, he explained.In opinion of the Venezuelan government, the incursion of Colombian paramilitary groups responds to a subversive plan through which so far unusual scourges like hired assassination, kidnapping and paramilitarism have been introduced into this country.

comment-also see...Paramilitaries displace population near Venezuela border http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/7821-paramilitaries-displace-population-near-venezuela-border.htmlAccording to Ombudsman Volmar Perez Ortiz, quoted on Friday by newspaper El Tiempo and again on Sunday by radio station Caracol, paramilitary groups Aguilas Negras and Los Rastrojos have been carrying out selective killings, massacres and attacks on the civilian population in the Norte de Santander department and to lesser extent in other border departments.

Black Eagles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Eagles   Black Eagles (Spanish: Águilas Negras) is a term describing a series of Colombian right wing, counter-revolutionary, paramilitary organizations made up of new and preexisting paramilitary forces, some of which were part of the demobilized Self-Defense Units of Colombia (AUC). also see...RIGTHWING PARAMILITARISM in COLOMBIA 1 URIBE AUC killers COLOMBIA VIDEO TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH PART 1 http://www.jahu.net/videos/video/jAABv-PfTtk/

Venezuela reportedly arrests Dominican diplomats with forged bonds http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2010/2/3/34695/Venezuela-reportedly-arrests-Dominican-diplomats-with-forged-bonds

Dominican Today: Foreign Relations minister Carlos Morales has confirmed that two Dominican diplomats were arrested in Caracas, Venezuela, while trying to sell forged bonds of that country's Central Bank on Monday. The official, who said he has no details of the incident, affirmed having ordered "the pertinent inquiries" as soon as the information was obtained.

The Z-101 FM radio morning program broke the news was yesterday and revealed that a retired general was also arrested together with the diplomats, whose names have yet to be disclosed.The diplomats, who allegedly tried to cash US$28 million in forged bonds, were released on their diplomatic immunity, whereas the retired general, whose name the Dominican authorities have yet to provide, accompanied them to the Central Bank, where the arrests occurred.

The news broke when the retired general reportedly requested the assistance of a lawyer in the country.Repeat offenses: It's not the first time Dominican diplomats and from other Latin American nations are caught trying to defraud Venezuela's Central Bank, said Z-101 FM radio, adding that it's the third time for those from the Caribbean nation.

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Despite Indians and Greens Opposition Brazil Goes Ahead with Amazon Dam http://www.brazzilmag.com/component/content/article/82-february-2010/11813-despite-indians-and-greens-opposition-brazil-goes-ahead-with-amazon-dam.html

The Brazilian government has given the go-ahead to a controversial project to build a massive hydroelectric dam in the heart of the Amazon jungle. Brazil's environmental protection agency has said yes despite objections from environmentalists and indigenous people who live in the area.

Erwin Krautler, the Catholic bishop of Xingu and head of the church's Indian missionary council, says going ahead with the dam would have "unforeseeable consequences" among the region's indigenous people. "These people will cry, they will shout, they will rise up," he warned.

comment-this is a travesty,and this is to be blamed solely on the greedy capitalist and neoliberal model  that has put interests of  corporations bankers before the indigenous entitlements to live in harmony with their ancetsral lands......fuck the foreign investment and minister of enviroment...

'Iran will deliver telling blow to global powers on Feb. 11'  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117545&sectionid=351020101

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the nation will deliver a harsh blow to the "global arrogance" on this year's anniversary of the Islamic Revolution."The Islamic Revolution opened a window to liberty for the human race, which was trapped in the dead ends of materialism," Ahmadinejad said during a cabinet meeting on Sunday."If the Islamic Revolution had not occurred, liberalism and Marxism would have crushed all human dignity in their power-seeking and money-grubbing claws. Nothing would have remained of human and spiritual principles," he added.

Ahmadinejad said that in the three decades of its history, the Islamic Revolution had inspired some great developments in the world.The Iranian president made the remarks as the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution approaches.Iranians are expected to pour into the streets on February 11 to celebrate the occasion in public rallies across the country, as they have done annually over the past three decades.

Swiss seek to repatriate cash of ex-Haiti dictator http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gH20L9J9SZgJsWux2InrKCA8YBkw

In an embarrassment to Switzerland's government, the country's top court said Wednesday that at least $4.6 million in Swiss bank accounts previously awarded to charities must be returned to the family of Haiti's ex-dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.

The decision was unrelated to the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, killing at least 150,000 people, but the amount of money contested could feed more than a million Haitians for two weeks.

The court's decision was reached hours before the quake but only published Wednesday, prompting the Swiss government to issue an emergency decree to keep the money frozen in a Swiss bank until a new law can be passed allowing it to be donated to aid groups working in Haiti.

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Prof. Francis Boyle: Israel Is Committing Genocide http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1002/S00026.htm

``What we're seeing in Gaza now, is pretty much slow-motion genocide against the 1.5 million Palestinians who live in Gaza.... If you read the 1948 Genocide Convention, it clearly says that one instance of genocide is the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part,'' stated Francis A. Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois in Champaign.

``And that's exactly what has been done to Gaza, since the imposition of the blockade by Israel; then the massacre of 1,400 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were civilians, in Operation Cast Lead. And that also raises the element in the Genocide Convention, of murder, torture, and things of that nature.''

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'Justice Denied' in CIA Shootdown of Missionaries http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/justice-denied-cia-shootdown-missionaries/story?id=9737718

The CIA today was accused of lying to Congress and covering up its role in the deaths of two innocent Americans, a mother and her infant daughter, at the hands of the CIA and the Peruvian Air Force nine years ago."These were Americans that were killed with the help of their government, the community covered it up, they delayed investigating."

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McConnell Raised Big Bucks From Foreign Defense Contractor Probed For Bribery  http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/mcconnell_raised_big_bucks_from_foreign_defense_co.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TPMmuckraker+%28TPMmuckraker%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been quick to denounce a bid by Democrats to stop foreign corporations from pouring money into U.S. elections, claiming current law already bars such spending. As we've reported before, it's not nearly as simple as that -- but McConnell should know: The GOP Senate leader has raked in campaign cash from a subsidiary of a major foreign defense contractor that's currently being investigated by the Justice Department for bribery.

comment-also see...Military Industrial Congress Complex http://www.iraqwar.org/micomplex.htm

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French Government Queries U.S. State Dept. about LSD Attack, Prompted by New Book Release  http://www.prweb.com/releases/A_Terrible_Mistake/Albarelli/prweb3549024.htm

Prompted by a new book, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research has received a confidential inquiry from the French intelligence agency, the DGSE, concerning the US government’s involvement in a mysterious 1951 incident of mass insanity in the village of Pont-Saint-Esprit. The book, titled “A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments,” chronicles the strange outbreak that caused the deaths of at least five people and severely affected nearly five hundred.

The Pont-St.-Esprit incident had been attributed either to ergot or organic mercury poisoning. But investigative journalist H.P. Albarelli reports the outbreak resulted from a covert LSD aerosol experiment directed by the US Army’s top-secret Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Albarelli notes the scientists who produced the false explanations worked for Sandoz Pharmaceutical, which was secretly supplying the Army and CIA with LSD. 

Albarelli also describes a series of small, secret chemical attacks by the CIA on the New York City subway system during the 1950s. Recently, the Army has referred to these experiments as “simulated tests,” but contemporary documents make no reference to simulation. An August 1950 FBI memorandum refers to “planned BW (biological warfare) experiments in the New York Subway System in September, 1950,” expressing concerns about “poisoning the water supply of a large metropolitan area at the source … the poisoning of food … sold to the general public.”

Rendition victim moves to sue US http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/02/20102295544356373.html

A Canadian man who was deported by US officials to Syria, where he was imprisoned and allegedly tortured, has appealed a court ruling preventing him from suing the US.Maher Arar filed a lawsuit before the US supreme court on Monday, appealing a lower court ruling that rejected his case because it involved national security information.

Kansas City agencies won't seek federal funds to combat human trafficking http://www.mcclatchydc.com/256/story/83588.html

Despite its status as an emerging hub for human trafficking, Kansas City may soon lose nearly $1 million in federal funds for police training and aid for trafficking victims.

Two local agencies — the Independence Police Department and Hope House — received three-year Justice Department grants in 2006 but will not reapply, officials said. The grants expired at the end of last year.

Children lead way in record New York homelessness Hunger in America jumps unprecedented 46 percent  http://rawstory.com/2010/02/study-unprecedented-hunger-us/%20%20http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Children_lead_way_in_record_New_Yor_02032010.html

Homelessness in New York City has soared. Official figures for January showed a total of 37,400 homeless people in the city, including 8,800 families and 15,800 children. And a study by the nation's largest food bank operator shows the number of Americans in need of food aid has jumped 46 percent in three years, including a 50 percent jump in the number of children. It also found a 64 percent increase in hunger in senior citizens' homes.

The study, Hunger in America 2010, found that 37 million people, or roughly one in eight US residents, received food aid in 2009--a 46 percent jump from 2006. Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America, said: "It is morally reprehensible that we live in the wealthiest nation in the world where one in six people are struggling to make choices between food and other basic necessities."

US-Colombian Deal Accelerates "Dangerous Trend" http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1002/S00028.htm

The Obama administration’s pact to use seven Colombian military bases accelerates “a dangerous trend in U.S. hemispheric policy,” an article in The Nation magazine warns. The White House claims the deal merely formalizes existing military cooperation but the Pentagon’s 2009 budget request said it needed funds to improve one of the bases in order to conduct “full spectrum operations throughout South America” and to “expand expeditionary warfare capability.”

“With a hodgepodge of treaties and projects, such as the International Law Enforcement Academy and the Merida Initiative, Obama is continuing the policies of his predecessors, spending millions to integrate the region’s military, policy, intelligence and even, through Patriot Act-like legislation, judicial systems,” writes historian Greg Grandin, a New York University professor  Although much of Latin America is in the vanguard of the “anti-corporate and anti-militarist global democracy movement,” Grandin writes, the Obama administration is “disappointing potential regional allies by continuing to promote a volatile mix of militarism and free-trade orthodoxy in a corridor running from Mexico to Colombia.” Grandin’s article in The Nation’s February 8th issue is titled, “Muscling Latin America.” 

The fountainhead of this effort is Plan Colombia, a multibillion-dollar U.S. aid package that over the past decade “has failed to stem the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States,” Grandin says, noting that more Andean coca was synthesized into cocaine in 2008 than in 1998. Underlying the anti-drug fight, however, is a counterinsurgency struggle for control of “ungoverned spaces” via a “clear, hold and build” sequence urged by the U.S. military to weaken Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces(FARC). The Bush White House condoned the right-wing paramilitaries who, along with their narcotraficante allies “now control about 10 million acres, roughly half of the country’s most fertile land,” Grandin reports. They also spread terror in the countryside and are responsible for many killings and for driving peasants from their land. 

Grandin reports that the paras “have taken control of hundreds of municipal governments, establishing what Colombian social scientist Leon Valencia calls ‘true local dictatorships,’ consolidating their property seizures and deepening their ties to narcos, landed elites and politicians.” What’s more, “The country’s sprawling intelligence apparatus is infiltrated by this death squad/narco combine, as is its judiciary and Congress, where more than forty deputies from the governing party are under investigation for ties to (the right-wing) AUC (United Self Defense Forces). 

“Colombia remains the hands-down worst repressor in Latin America,” Grandin asserts. “More than 500 trade unionists have been executed since (Alvaro) Uribe took office. In recent years 195 teachers have been assassinated, and not one arrest has been made for the killings. And the military stands accused of murdering more than 2,000 civilians and then dressing their bodies in guerrilla uniforms in order to prove progress against the FARC.” Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities fighting paras who have seized land to cultivate African palm for ethanol production have been evicted by mercenaries and the military, Grandin says. “From Panama to Mexico, rural protesters are likewise targeted. In the Salvadoran department of Cabanas,” he observes, “death squads have executed four leaders---three in December---who opposed the Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining Company’s efforts to dig a gold mine in their community.” 

Obama could reconsider the Pentagon’s base deal and Plan Colombia, Grandin writes, “But that would mean rethinking a longer, multi-decade, bipartisan, trillion-dollars-and-counting ‘war on drugs,’ and Obama has other wars to extricate himself from---or not, as the case may be.” “Unable or unwilling to make concessions on these and other issues important to Latin America---normalizing relations with Cuba, for instance, or advancing immigration reform---the White House is adopting an increasingly antagonistic posture,” Grandin explains. He notes that after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Brazil, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Latin Americans to “think twice” about “the consequences” of engagement with Iran. An Argentine diplomat responded, “The Obama administration would never talk to European countries that way.”

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Imperialism has a propaganda campaign in the international media that lies ceaselessly http://www.anarkismo.net/article/15737

On January 28th, we had the chance to have a telephone talk with Camilla Chalmers, from the Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif (Haitian Platform in Defence o fan Alternative Development, PAPDA), in Port-au-Prince.

2. Which is the situation currently with the US occupation?

What the US is doing, the militarisation of Haiti with the pathetic excuse of humanitarian aid, is unacceptable. This is part of a strategy to militarise the Caribbean region, as a way to confront the people’s awakening in Latin America and to also threat the Bolivarian Venezuela Republic. This is no isolated action. There is the military base set up by US imperialism in Curacao, with the complicity of the Dutch government. There are the military bases in Colombia. And now we have this military response to a fundamentally humanitarian problem.

3. But the US say that this is a “humanitarian” mission… what do you think of this?

We have to state things clearly, because imperialism has a propaganda campaign in the international media that lies ceaselessly. This military presence of the US brought no relief to the human catastrophe we are living; quite the contrary, they delayed humanitarian aid of countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, of European countries, of Caricom, in order to privilege Haiti’s militarisation. What’s going on in Haiti is really scandalous. What is being pursued really is the geopolitical control of the Caribbean and it is really outrageous that they use shamelessly for this purpose such a painful situation that the Haitian people are going through at the moment.

Together with this geopolitical control we believe that the militarization of Haiti responds to what Bush called a “preventive war” logic. The US fear a popular uprising, because the life standards in Haiti for a long time are intolerable, and this is even more so the case now, they are inhumane. So the troops are getting ready for when the time to suppress the people comes. 

4. What do you think of the international community projects for the “reconstruction” of Haiti?

That is another scandal. The Haitian people’s movement and their organisations have been excluded by the international community from decision making on solutions to this crisis. This only shows the reactionary and anti-popular nature of the measures they want to impose to reconstruct our country. We have, for instance, the IMF loan which is not a grant that matches the dimensions of this human tragedy, not such a thing, but an extortionist and cynical loan, tied to conditionalities in order to facilitate a more favourable environment for transnational investment in Haiti. 

5. What is the role of the people in this crisis?

In the face of this humanitarian farce to justify militarization and of an international community which pursues to reconstruct Haiti according to their own interests instead of those of the Haitian people, our people showed a great capacity. They got organised to face this crisis, they practiced solidarity in a very touching way… here you can see people sharing all they have, living on the streets and sharing their clothes, their food, whatever they have is shared with those behind you.

Our people reject militarization, they don’t want it, they are outraged to find so many weapons being sent instead of food, medicine or fresh water. But it is among this self-organised people where the foundations for a much necessary alternative project can be found. Not more of the same, but something really alternative and popular.

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Myths for Profit: Canada's Role in Industries of War and Peace http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsAOoGapKMk

must watch!!!

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Technocracy and the New World Order Parts 1  http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5906-technocracy-resurgent-for-the-new-world-order-prospects-for-carbon-currency

Part 2 http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5908-technocracy-and-the-new-world-order-part-2

Part 3 http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5907-technocracy-and-the-new-world-order-part-3

US exonerates authors of Bush torture memos http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/pers-f02.shtml

Bush administration lawyers whose secret memos justified waterboarding and other forms of torture will not be referred to authorities for possible sanctions, according to a forthcoming ethics report.Unnamed sources who spoke to Newsweek magazine said the Obama Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has concluded that John Yoo and Jay Bybee, who penned the infamous memos, used “poor judgment” but will not be subject to disciplinary action.

Yoo and Bybee worked in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, along with Steven Bradbury, who is also named in the report.The conclusions of the OPR report provide yet another demonstration of President Barack Obama’s defense of the anti-democratic and criminal practices of the Bush administration in the “war on terror,” and the current administration’s resolve that no one—especially those at the highest levels of government—will be held to account.

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Iraq to sue US, Britain over depleted uranium bombs http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=117557&sectionid=351020201

Iraq’s Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the US over their use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, an Iraqi minister says.Iraq’s Minister of Human Rights, Wijdan Mikhail Salim, told Assabah newspaper that the lawsuit will be launched based on reports from the Iraqi ministries of science and the environment.According to the reports, during the first year of the US and British invasion of Iraq, both countries had repeatedly used bombs containing depleted uranium.

According to Iraqi military experts, the US and Britain bombed the country with nearly 2,000 tons of depleted uranium bombs during the early years of the Iraq war.Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq.Iraqi doctors say they’ have been struggling to cope with the rise in the number of cancer cases —especially in cities subjected to heavy U-S and British bombardment.

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US Intelligence Report Classifies Venezuela as “Anti-US Leader” http://www.chavezcode.com/2010/02/us-intelligence-report-classifies.html

Not only is the US intelligence community demonstrating poor intelligence collecting and analyses here, but also evidencing its clear dependency on opposition sources inside and outside Venezuela. No news outlets have been shut down in Venezuela. Some have been fined and sanctioned for not following legal regulations, but that happens frequently in the US as well. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposes sanctions on hundreds of media outlets in the US each year. No one classifies those actions as violating freedom of expression, but rather merely enforcing the law.

Furthermore, not only has the Chavez administration not detained protestors that regularly violate all kinds of laws by blocking highways and vital roads throughout the nation, marching without permission from local authorities, calling publicly for the overthrow of the government, throwing molotov cocktails and other deadly objects at state security forces, but President Chavez himself has actually ordered police to refrain from carrying deadly weapons when dealing with public protests and to respect demonstrators’ human rights. In the US, protestors are regularly detained and violently repressed by police forces – almost at every demonstration – and constantly denied permission to march or protest near any government building.Also, Chavez’s popularity has not “dropped significantly”. It remains well above 60%, as it has been during the past several years.

But the report goes on to accuse Chavez of forming an “anti-US alliance” in Latin America. “On foreign policy, Chavez’s regional influence may have peaked, but he is likely to continue to support likeminded political allies and movements in neighboring countries and seek to undermine moderate, pro-US governments. He has formed an alliance of radical leaders in Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, an until recently, Honduras.” (Note: Honduras was part of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas “ALBA”, until the recent Washington-backed coup d’etat. This statement in the intelligence report evidences the US’s clear satisfaction with Honduras’ withdrawal from the alliance).

In the following phrase, the US intelligence report also relates Chavez and ALBA nations to drug-trafficking and terrorism, “He and his allies are likely to oppose nearly every US policy initiative in the region, including the expansion of free trade, counter drug and counterterrorism cooperation, military training and security initiatives, and even US assistance programs.”

“Chavez’s relationship with Colombia’s President Uribe is particularly troubled. His outspoken opposition to Colombia’s Defense Cooperation Agreement with the US has led to an increase in border tensions. Chavez has called the agreement a declaration of war against Venezuela. He has restricted Colombian imports, warned of a potential military conflict and continued his covert support to the terrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).”

In the above statement, the US again accuses the Chavez government of supporting the FARC, yet has never presented any solid evidence to back this claim, which has been repeatedly denied by the Venezuelan government. Cynically, the US is also accusing Chavez of somehow “increasing tensions” with Colombia because he opposes the establishment of seven US military bases in Colombia right across the Venezuelan border

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Navy Times Report: CAG ignored procedures over Venezuela http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/02/navy_cag_venezuela_020210w/

The aircrew led by Capt. James Paulsen, who was commander of the Virginia-based Carrier Air Wing 1, flew over several Venezuelan islands on May 17, 2008. At the time, Venezuelan officials denounced the intrusion and summoned the US ambassador to Venezuela to explain the incident. Paulsen was later reprimanded, but he kept his job.

The Navy report blamed Paulsen, 51, and his detachment for failing to review the area's geography before conducting operations and being unaware of the 12 nautical-mile standoff rules that the US military maintains in the politically sensitive area, the report said.

comment-keep in mind this is same us government that denied venezuelas most recent  claimof violation of its airspace,even after  venezuela gave hard evidence showing indeed us pilot had breached its aispace sovereignty...US denies US plane flew over Venezuelan airspace http://www.stabroeknews.com/2010/world/01/09/us-denies-us-plane-flew-over-venezuelan-airspace/Venezuelan government disseminates strong evidence U.S. air raid from Curacao http://www.vtv.gob.ve/noticias-nacionales/28398VIDEO EVIDENCE AND PICTORIAL EVIDENCE http://www.vtv.gob.ve/files/converted_videos/28400_AvanceVTVCarrizalezTrazasviolacioncurazao.flv

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Canadian Mining and Popular Resistance in Honduras  http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2345-canadian-mining-and-popular-resistance-in-honduras

CDA: In Villa de Siria we have been strongly connected with the general resistance against the coup. Because we think it’s important to defend the rights of the people. We have been saying that with all of this process related to the new government of Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Soza, and before that the coupist government of Roberto Micheletti, the entire scenario changed (relative to the situation under Zelaya). 

We are demanding that the current government introduce a mining law that respects the dignity of the people, that responds to the interests of the people, and not the interests of the huge transnationals. We are saying that there cannot be any investment of foreign capital, in this case Canadian, that wants to come and rob our natural resources – who try to intrude in our interests, in relation to our national legislation. This can’t happen.

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Haiti: The Impacts of Militarized Aid http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2346-the-impacts-of-militarized-aid

As the story of the tragedy in Haiti continues to unfold, the spotlight seems to have turned away from the aid and the tragedy itself, and instead now largely focuses on the U.S. military aid effort. Doctors Without Borders and the director of French aid have both complained that the U.S. military has impeded the progress of the relief mission. Regardless of what troop increases may represent, it undoubtedly highlights a problematic trend in development aid effort; aid is often militarized.

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Torch Sparks Action Nationwide http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/3147

MONTREAL—On October 30, 2009, the Olympic Torch was ignited in Canada and set out on its 106-day relay. A “unique moment in Canadian history” when people can “feel the Olympic Spirit and reach for gold,” according to major Olympic-backer Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), the cross-country tour has aimed to build hype for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

People have greeted the torch along its route with their own messages, including the theft of Indigenous land, corporate profit grabbing, ecological destruction, militarization and migrant exploitation, all directly associated with the Olympics. Some have also used the Relay to bring forward issues of sovereignty, lack of justice for hundreds of missing and murdered Native women and opposition to the seal hunt.As the Torch Relay has moved from community to community, it has been a magnet for opposition to the Olympics and has simultaneously stirred assertions of sovereignty in First Nations communities along its route.

At the Torch Relay kickoff event in Victoria, 400 people held a zombie march and took part in an anti-Torch Relay festival. At one point, the protest jammed the street and forced the torch to be extinguished and re-routed. In the week before the event, at least 25 people were visited by Integrated Security Unit and asked questions about the torch, according to an article on anarchistnews.org. From there, the torch traveled north across the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, bypassed the Alberta tar sands, circled up to the northern tip of Nunavut and back down again to the Atlantic Provinces where it would once again meet opposition.It saw dissidents with banners in Halifax, followed by more in Quebec City. Five days later, residents of Kahnawake saw to it that the RCMP would not enter their territory; local Mohawk Peacekeepers accompanied the torch instead.

Montreal’s sizeable opposition came next, with 200 people blocking the stage set up for the occasion and delaying the fanfare for almost an hour. “We are here today to express our solidarity and our resistance with people in British Colombia and all across Turtle Island who are resisting these disgusting Olympics that are being built on stolen Native land, which are causing displacement all over downtown Vancouver [and] all over the interior of so-called British Columbia,” announced demonstrator Aaron Lakoff through a megaphone. Police in riot gear eventually arrived on the scene and heavy-handedly shoved the demonstration out of the way.

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Leonard Peltier: Alive and Kicking in the Iron House http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/02/leonard-peltier-alive-and-kicking-in.html

Greetings from the Iron House. It has come to my attention that a rumor has been circulating about my death. Sorry to disappoint the Trimbachs, Ed Wood, and all the other vermin, but I am still alive and kicking. I continue to struggle for the truth about my case-much of it hidden in the 6,000 documents they are afraid to release-to see the light of day.I have been monitoring the case with the Crow Creek tribe’s land issues, and have been asked my opinion. As in nearly all things, I come down on the side of the tribe. Sovereignty and self determination are the lynch pins to Indian freedom. I want the people of Crow Creek to know they have my fullest support in their endeavors. This case affects all Indians, and should matter to all people of conscience.

Everyone should monitor this case to its fullest conclusion, and know it is yet another example of Indian people’s daily reality. The Indian wars are not over; they just are fought more in the courtrooms and the boardrooms these days. But the issues are mostly the same-the land, resources, and freedom. Freedom to think. Freedom to live as we wish. Freedom to be who we are. Don’t for a second allow yourself to think that the conspirators aren’t working. They’re out there, and as always they’re plotting ways to dispossess and marginalize Indian people at every opportunity.

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Kevin Pina, Reporting from on the Ground in Haiti – Summary of His Monday, Feb. 1 Report http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/kevin-pina-reporting-from-on-the-ground-in-haiti-summary-of-his-monday-feb-1-report/

-Distribution of food and water continues, but coverage is spotty and many areas of Port-au-Prince still not having received food.  -UN has altered its food distributions by giving out coupons to women only for bags of rice. Presumably, the women, as the primary caretakers of children, are to distribute the rice among family members.  -The UN continues to refuse to cooperate with grassroots groups to facilitate distribution of food.

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Lord Rifkin advocates for a new «Entente cordiale» with France http://www.voltairenet.org/article163858.html

Through a column in The Times, Sir Malcolm Rifkin has called for a new "entente cordiale" with France within the NATO structure.[1]As former British Minister of Defence and of Foreign Affairs, he considers that only a Franco-British military pact would make it possible to harmonize expensive military equipment. This would result in significant savings that would enable the United Kingdom to continue to rank as a great power.Historically, Franco-British alliances have always existed concurrently with German-Russian alliances.

Lord Rifkin’s proposal would thus imply an acceleration of a divorce between French and Germany and the weakening of the European Union.However, this project might also fit in with the dominant idea in London of a general reorganisation of the Empire. It would be established on two equivalent pillars: the United States and a European Union led by France, while the United Kingdom would be the bridge between the two and in the centre of the decision-making. In this case, it will be necessary to restrain Berlin’s pro-Russian leanings, in exchange for other interests in Central Europe.

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Parliament sets out concerns over Colombia trade deal http://euobserver.com/9/29392

Trade unionist murders  Objection to the deal centres primarily round the country's high rate of murders of trade unionists, accounting for 60 percent of the world total. Trade unions also accuse the government of President Alvaro Uribe of collaboration with Colombia's extensive network of right-wing parliamentaries, and condemn the judiciary's low rate of prosecutions. According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and Colombia's principle trade union confederation, the CUT, 39 trade unionists were murdered in 2007 in the country, with 49 murders in 2008.

Alberto Vanegas, director of human rights at the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores union told MEPs last week the violence amounted to a "political genocide of the trade unionist movement," and urged the EU not to sign the free trade agreement. Irish centre-right MEP Gay Mitchell said the killings were "unacceptable," while British socialist MEP Michael Cashman said his UK Labour Party colleagues would not support the deal without an investigation. "I see the fact that we have not signed the agreement as a great way to push for increased changes," he said.

In Arauca, Black Eagles threaten community http://prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article3563

Members of the Campesino Association of Arauca report that on Monday 1st. February Gelvez Mrs. Nancy Vega, a resident of the El Paraíso (Municipality of Arauquita) received a phone call on behalf of the Black Eagles (rigthwing paramilitary group) in which he said the community had 24 hours to get out . Nancy is the wife of Javier Higuera Rueda, one of the thirteen people unjustly detained last December. 

According to findings of the community, the call was made from a "minute" phone from which calls are sold to the public, located in the neighborhood of Las Americas in the city of Arauca, near the base of the 18th Brigade of the Army.  Community is concerned that law enforcement does not ensure the integrity of the rural communities of Arauca and paramilitary actions may remain.  The fact was already made known to the authorities.

comment-black eagles(aguilas negras)are a rigthwing paramilitary terrorist group tied to colombian armed forces(part of the so called demobilized forces)they are working in conjunction with colombian military and behind forced displacements along with army against indigneous communities....also see...Black Eagles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Eagles

Black Eagles (Spanish: Águilas Negras) is a term describing a series of Colombian right wing, counter-revolutionary, paramilitary organizations made up of new and preexisting paramilitary forces, some of which were part of the demobilized Self-Defense Units of Colombia (AUC). These were first considered to be a third generation of paramilitary groups but there are Colombian military reports suggesting the Águilas Negras are intermediaries in the drug business between the guerrilla and drug cartels outside Colombia

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Island residents sue U.S., saying military made them sick http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/news/military/12773-island-residents-sue-us-saying-military-made-them-sick.html

For nearly six decades, beginning right after World War II, Vieques was one of the Navy's largest firing ranges and weapons testing sites.

"Inside the base, you could feel the ground -- the ground moving," Marrero said. "You can hear the concussions. You could feel it. If you're on the range, you could feel it in your chest. That's the concussion from the explosion. It would rain, actually rain, bombs. And this would go on seven days a week."

Cancer on the island of Vieques: Is the U.S. to blame? http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/01/vieques.illness.part.2/index.html?hpt=C1

The Rosas live on Vieques, an American island off Puerto Rico. For nearly 60 years, the U.S. military used much of the island as a bombing range, dropping vast quantities of live bombs and missiles in weapons tests. Now, about three-quarters of the island's residents -- including Coral and her 14-year-old sister Inna -- are part of a lawsuit that claims the bombing range made them sick.

The least should be done is free health care. "In response to the islander's lawsuit, the U.S. government is invoking sovereign immunity, claiming the islanders do not have the right to sue the government and that there's no proof that the Navy's activities caused the widespread illnesses." This is irresponsible and sad on the part of the US.

Terrorist Attack on the U.S. Within Six Months "a Certainty" http://renovomedia.com/news/terrorist-attack-on-the-u-s-within-six-months-a-certainty/

Another attempted terrorist attack on the United States in coming months is "certain," the heads of major U.S intelligence agencies told a Senate committee Tuesday.

comment-false flag alert,false flag alert!!!

Pentagon Black Budget Sees Year Over Year Record Funding; Tops $56 Billion http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/pentagons-black-budget-tops-56-billion/

 about $56 billion goes simply to “classified programs,” or to projects known only by their code names, like “Chalk Eagle” and “Link Plumeria.” That’s the Pentagon’s black budget.

Last year, that budget grew to more than $50 billion – ”the largest-ever sum,” according to Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman, a longtime black-budget seer. A few more billion were added for wartime operations, for a total of $54 billion. This year’total would be $2 billion higher, a 3.7 percent increase.

comment-also see..Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World By Trevor Paglen http://books.google.com/books?id=6NSubUPZYxcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Blank+Spots+on+the+Map:+The+Dark+Geography+of+the+Pentagon%E2%80%99s+Secret+World&source=bl&ots=P508jT3lOn&sig=d5KI3e_8pjlfW8DYKvlgxzTzml0&hl=en&ei=R25pS5-GM9SztgeLt-jPBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false

VIDEO-Alimentarius Cohorts Wage War Against Food http://coto2.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/codex-alimentarius-cohorts-wage-war-against-food/

The Makings of a Police State-Part VI http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/31/the-makings-of-a-police-state-part-vi/

MIDEAST: Raze Illegal Buildings - Unless They Are Jewish http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50202