The Truth about US Justice http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/the-truth-about-us-justice/

But I really don’t think we can blame the jurors for the verdict – you see the jury simply could not handle the truth. Had they taken the logical route and gone for the science and the hard, cold, clinical facts it would have meant two things. It would have meant around eight US soldiers took the oath and lied in court to save their own skins and careers or it would have meant that Dr Aafia Siddiqui was telling the truth.

And, as I said before, the jury couldn’t handle the truth. Because that would have meant that the defendant really had been kidnapped, abused, tortured and held in dark, secret prisons by the US before being shot and put on a rendition flight to New York. It would have meant that her three children – two of them US citizens – would also have been kidnapped, abused and tortured by the US.

They say ignorance is bliss and this jury so desperately wanted not to believe that the US could have had a hand in the kidnapping of a five-month -old baby boy, a five-year-old girl and her seven-year-old brother.They couldn’t handle the truth … it is as simple as that.Well I, and many others across the world like me, can’t handle any more lies. America’s reputation is lying in the lowest gutters in Pakistan at the moment and it can’t sink any lower.And I think even Her Excellency Anne Patterson recognizes that fact which is why she is now keeping her mouth shut.

If she has any integrity and any self respect left she should stand before the Pakistan people and ask for their forgiveness for the drone murders, the extra judicial killings, the black operations, the kidnapping, torture and rendition of its citizens, the water-boarding, the bribery, the corruption and, not least of all, the injustice handed out to Dr Aafia Siddiqui and her family.

She should then pick up the phone to the US President and tell him to release Aafia and return Pakistan’s most loved, respected and famous daughter and reunite her with the two children who are still missing.Then she should re-read her letter of August 16, 2008 and write another … one of resignation.

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A Eurocentric Problem http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/a-eurocentric-problem/

Unlike the garden variety of ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism emerged as an ideological project – shaped by Europe’s intellectual elites – in the service of Europe’s rising expansionist, starting in the sixteenth century. It makes sweeping claims of European superiority in all spheres of civilization. In this worldview, only Europeans have created history over the past three thousand years, beginning with the ancient Greeks. In various accounts, this centrality is ascribed to race, culture, religion and geography.

The central organizing principle of Eurocentrism is the division of the world into unequal moieties: us and them, self and the Other. All those qualities that Western thinkers believe are emblems or sources of superiority are securely placed in the ‘us’ category; and their opposites are pinned on ‘them.’ The arrogance of this dichotomy is breathtaking.

In truth, it is hard to imagine how any society, including the most primitive, could have adapted to their ecology without following – at least intuitively – the scientific method. In practical matters, knowledge unsupported by experience would have proved fatal for societies that were exposed more frequently than ours to life-threatening conditions.

Moreover, the Arab scientists were not only practicing the scientific method in their studies on optics, chemistry and astronomy, but in the early eleventh century, Ibn al-Haytham, known to the West as Alhazen, had offered a clear theoretical formulation of the scientific method. Roger Bacon, the putative founder of the scientific method had read parts of al-Haytham’s major work, Kitab al-Manazir, in a Latin translation, and summarized it in his own book, Perspectiva.

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For These Palestinian Refugees Brazil Has Become the Promised Land  http://www.brazzilmag.com/component/content/article/82-february-2010/11834-for-these-palestinian-refugees-brazil-has-become-the-promised-land.html

Hana Teisir, 20, works at one of the main beauty parlors in the small city of Santa Maria, 286 kilometers away from Porto Alegre, the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the Brazilian South. Along with her sister, Handa, she does threading, an epilation technique that is less harmful to the skin.

The siblings learned the beauty treatment in Iraq, where they were born, after their parents fled Palestine due to the establishment of Israel.The sisters arrived in Brazil in 2007, in a group of 108 Palestinian refugees brought by the Solidarity Resettlement Program, implemented by the Brazilian government with support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Salha claims that she had no problem adapting to Brazil. When asked about what she likes the most about the country, she promptly replies: "The Brazilian people, who love peace." She explains that she would like to be able to return to Palestine in order to visit her children, who she has not seen in seven years.

During the last edition of the World Social Forum, Salha and her husband ran a stand that sold snacks and biscuits at Casa da Palestina (House of Palestine), in the city of Canoas (state of Rio Grande do Sul), a space featuring handicraft, music, clothing and films on the history of the Palestinian people."I love Brazil. It is a wonderful country, there is no racism. We have freedom. It is a country that welcomes all races." Here, she also met her husband, who is also a Palestinian and a refugee.

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The McClatchy Corporation attacks Venezuela through The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald http://www.vtv.gob.ve/noticias-internacionales/29887

 The Miami Herald, published  an article this monday  wich was titled Venezuela is headed toward  disaster, which calls for intervention by other countries in Venezuelan internal affairs  The above editorial attacked the Venezuelan government with the same language and objectives of t the coup opposition inVenezuelaThe U.S. corporation The McClatchy Company, one of the largest in the country and the world, maintains a constant offensive against Venezuela and the Revolutionary Government through print media and digital controls. 

It does so thru the editorial published Monday by The Miami Herald, entitled "Venezuela is toward the disaster", which calls for intervention by other countries in Venezuelan internal affairs. The editorial, is  quoted by several opposition media in Venezuela, part of speech interfering and slandering, that characterizes that  media that depend on this economic conglomerate, headed by Gary B. Pruitt, U.S. tycoon who also participates as a director of New York-based news agency Associated Press and the Newspaper Association of America, which brings together owners of print media in that American nation. 

Both The Herald and its Spanish version, El Nuevo Herald, both published in the state of Florida, have a policy to attack countries like Cuba and Venezuela, who devote large sections of their printing means, by where they are printing false accusations against those governments and their officials. 

The above editorial attacked the Venezuelan government with the same language and objectives repeated by theVenezuelan opposition, wich is repeating this through the intricate and extensive media network that is owned by The McClatchy Company, with has its headquarters in Sacramento, California,wich is the third cluster of print media in the U.S., with  eighty plus newspapers and magazines in their possession. The McClatchy Company, listed on the Stock Exchange of New York, acquired in 2006 by Knight-Ridder group, including in the operation told The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.

comment-lets look at the article in question and offer a critique of the critique shall we?

Venezuela heads toward disaster OUR OPINION: Region's leaders need to act http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/story/1468724.html

Isn't that what the Organization of American States is for? Mr. Chávez has undermined, if not destroyed Venezuela's once vibrant, if imperfect, democracy. He has bullied his neighbors, fueled a regional arms race and brought political tensions inside the country to a boiling point. The region's leaders shouldn't wait for domestic bloodshed or a cross-border conflict to move them to act.

undermined?destroyed a once vibrant democracy?hes bulied his neighbors?fueled an arms race?first there was no democracy before chavez just a puppet client regime for foreign interests(imf)(world bank)and (foreign corporate interests),thats why there were popular uprisings,revolutions against perez(gained asylum in us after fleeing country became washingtons biggest asset in opposition against chavez)..see...

Caracazo, 1989 http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405184649_chunk_g9781405184649304

The Caracazo, also known as 27 F, was a spontaneous rebellion that began on February 27, 1989 in Venezuela's capital city of Caracas and which lasted about five days. The popular revolt – in response to a package of economic measures applied by the government – not only led to the worst state-led massacre in twentieth-century Venezuela, but is also seen by many as the starting point of a mass movement that a decade later brought Hugo Chávez to power

On February 16, 1989, Carlos Andrés Pérez, president of Venezuela's social democratic Acción Demócrata (AD) Party, announced a series of economic adjustments which he referred to as “the Package.” Pérez, sworn in as president just three weeks before in a costly ceremony commonly known as “the coronation,” coordinated the measures with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the basic conditions for a US$4.5 billion loan that it was hoped would remedy Venezuela's debt crisis, which followed years of economic boom dependent on petrodollars. Between 1986 and 1988, the country had accumulated an external debt of $7 billion.

In the midst of falling oil prices, there were no foreign currency reserves to depend on. The measures Pérez and the IMF agreed upon seem to have been drawn from a Chicago Boys' textbook: the termination of price controls, the discontinuation of subsidies, and the deregulation of the currency rate, a macroeconomic instrument 

now see whos fueled an arms race...Top Ten Reasons to Oppose US Military Aid to Colombia http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/colombia/topten.html

Since 2000 the United States government has given over $2 billion of mostly military aid to Colombia. 

U.S. Aid to Colombia, All Programs, 2006-2011 http://justf.org/Country?country=Colombia

now as far as the claim  chavez is  bullying his neighbors...see...Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas(ALBA)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alliance_for_the_Americas

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Spanish: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, or ALBA) is an international cooperation organization based on the idea of social, political, and economic integration between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

It is associated with socialist and social democratic governments and is an attempt at regional economic integration based on a vision of social welfare, bartering and mutual economic aid, rather than trade liberalization as with free trade agreements. ALBA nations are in the process of introducing a new regional currency, the SUCRE. It is intended to be the common virtual currency by 2010 and eventually a hard currency.

The agreement was initially proposed by the government of Venezuela, led by Hugo Chávez, as an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA or ALCA in Spanish) proposed by the United States. 

Union of South American Nations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_American_Nations

One of the initiatives of UNASUR is the creation of a single market, beginning with the elimination of tariffs for non-sensitive products by 2014 and sensitive products by 2019.

The South American Defence Council (SADC) was proposed by Venezuela and Brazil to serve as a NATO-like mechanism for regional security, promoting military co-operation and regional defence.

Presidents of the seven founding countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela and Uruguay) officially launched the South American Bank in Buenos Aires in December 2007http://www.brazilriodejaneiro.com/unasul-project.htm

Bank of the South http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_the_South

The ultimate goal of the Bank of the South is to include every state within the region of South America. It has been established because of disapproval of the protocol of the World Bank and IMF, in particular the enforcement of unrelated free market reforms on countries seeking emergency loans.[1] It also represents an attempt to achieve regional independence and endogenous development. The program would lend money to any nation involved in the construction of approved programs, and without conditions traditionally attached to such loans, such as deregulation.

The Bank is intended as an alternative to borrowing from the IMF and the World Bank. Hugo Chávez has promised to withdraw from the IMF and encourages other member states to do so as well, Indeed Latin America's dependence on the IMF fell dramatically between 2005 and 2008, with outstanding loans falling from 80% of the IMF's $81bn loan portfolio, to 1% of the IMF's $17bn of outstanding loans.[2] Brazil and Argentina are also refusing to borrow from the IMF again. In 2005, Latin America made up 80% of the IMF's lending portfolio. With Latin American countries refusing to continue dealing with it, that percentage dropped to 1% by 2007.[1]

It is proposed that all member countries contribute fairly equal shares to the Bank's initial capital of fourteen billion reais (seven billion dollars) so that no member state will control a dominant share. Argentina joined with Venezuela to officially propose such an initiative, but Brazil also became a major player