Keiser Report №23: Greg Palast on Vulture Funds http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/keiser-report-№23-greg-palast-on-vulture-funds/

This time Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report on the fake shop fronts making a “revived” economy in Northern England; the Chile quake causing Goldman Sachs’s high frequency trading to lose 2.1 trades per day; and the mobs in Indonesia, a “revolution” in Ireland and online media preventing an orderly transfer of wealth. Keiser also speaks to investigative journalist, Greg Palast, about the RICO case against US bankers and politicians and about vulture funds preying on the Third and First world economies.

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Frustration, Suffocation and Crisis Strife, siege on Gaza continue one year after Israeli bombardment http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/3253

The Israeli war on Gaza destroyed between 35 and 60 per cent of agricultural sector, tearing up irrigation networks, destroying hundreds of wells, water pumps, and cisterns, farm buildings and machinery, and killing over 35,000 cattle and sheep, and over 1 million chickens and birds. The most fertile areas of the impossibly small Strip lie in Gaza’s border regions—inhabited but largely undeveloped. Of the 175,000 dunams of cultivable land, 60-75,000 dunams have been destroyed by Israeli invasions and operations.

Unemployment remains rife at near 50 per cent, with food aid dependence and poverty at over 80 per cent. Educated youths with university degrees languish without work, or take jobs driving taxis for a paltry salary. Students craving higher education, and with scholarships abroad, remain imprisoned by Gaza’s siege-closed borders, losing study and scholarship opportunities.

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RAWA on International Women’s Day http://coto2.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/rawa-on-international-womens-day/

Today, on the 8th of March, Afghan women are mourning for the gang-rape of Bashiras and Saimas, for being flogged by most lowed elements, for being auctioned in open market and for their young daughters who put an end to their miserable lives by self-immolation. But the perpetrators of all these crimes are forgiven; therefore they enjoy complete immunity, are still holding their official positions and tightening it through plundering our people and country.

Though we don’t expect anything different from the most corrupt and dirty puppet regime of the world, the pain of Afghan women turns chronic when the world believes that the US and NATO has donated liberation, democracy and human and women rights for Afghanistan;whereas, after eight years of the US and allies’ aggression under the banner of “war on terror”, they empowered the most brutal terrorists of the Northern Alliance and the former Russian puppets – the Khalqis and Parchamis – and by relying on them, the US imposed a puppet government on Afghan people. 

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Is Europe Planning Seal of Approval for Israeli Settlers?Israel Set to Join Club of Richest Nations http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/03/is-europe-planning-seal-of-approval-for-israeli-settlers/

An exclusive club of the world’s most developed countries is poised to admit Israel as a member even though, a confidential internal document indicates, doing so will amount to endorsing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories.Israel has been told that its accession to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is all but assured when the 30 member states meet in May.But a draft OECD report concedes that Israel has breached one of the organisation’s key requirements on providing accurate and transparent data on its economic activity.

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Amir, ten years old, abducted by Israeli soldiers from  his bed http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_58800.shtml

Amir al-Mohtaseb smiled tenderly when I asked him to tell me his favorite color. Sitting in his family's living room last Thursday afternoon, 4 March, in the Old City of Hebron, the ten-year-old boy with freckles and long eyelashes softly replied, "green." He then went on to describe in painful detail his arrest and detention -- and the jailing of his 12-year-old brother Hasan by Israeli occupation soldiers on Sunday, 28 February. 

Hours after our interview, at 2am, Israeli soldiers would break into the house, snatch Amir from his bed, threaten his parents with death by gunfire if they tried to protect him, and take him downstairs under the stairwell. They would beat him so badly that he would bleed internally into his abdomen, necessitating overnight hospitalization. In complete shock and distress, Amir would not open his mouth to speak for another day and a half.

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Full-Circle of The Waiting Game: Total Boycott Against Total Occupation http://tiny.cc/pVkax

We challenge those who call for a mild and selective boycott to identify any Israeli institution, may it be large or small, which is not part of this ‘matrix of control’ that suffocates our Palestinian nation. As this occupation is total and unmerciful, so must our universal approach to fighting it and ending it be. As Israel’s occupation covers all of historic Palestine and not only selective parts of it, so must our call for a democratic state which includes all of historic Palestine. A Palestine for all its people: Jews, Muslims, Christians, Coptic, Atheists and non-Conformists. 

In order to achieve this goal, we need a total boycott of the Zionist State. In order to achieve this aim, we need to identify that State. In order to identify that State, we need to untangle the politics of intrigue which produced the 181 UNRES which paved the way for the creation of that State. In order to untangle the tangled politics of that Resolution, we need to sit down, dust-off and read the official archives that go back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration. We need to dig deep into the dark politics and personalities that gave one nation, Palestine, away to one small foreign group against the will of over a million indigenous Palestinian people. We must go the full circle. It is a trip which will take us full circle. We have come full circle now, so our boycott must be a full boycott.

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Mexico Subdued by the Empire http://www.tiwy.com/news.phtml?id=155

To prevent the materialization of the scenario, the Pentagon and the US intelligence community are retraining their Mexican colleagues for broad offensives against drug guerrillas and for “cleanings” in Sinaloa, Michoacan, Guerrero, Baja California, etc. Urban combat is known to be a part of the training program. Mexican commentator Pedro Echeverria (aporrea.org, February 26, 2010) says the US is bracing for a step-by-step establishment of police and military control over Mexico.

The border zone will be militarized at the initial phase of the process, and then US bases will start to proliferate across Mexico under the pretext of assisting the friendly country in the fight against drug cartels, left extremists, and various terrorist groups. The Pentagon, the CIA, and other US intelligence agencies have for years been studying the territory where the activity might unfold. They have an array of scenarios which are adjusted on a regular basis and await implementation.

comment-also read... Laura Carlsen: Plan Mexico, also called the Merida Initiative http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16654

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Colombia: The vultures of Europe http://bellaciao.org/fr/spip.php?article99203

Europe, driven by the Spanish Presidency expects to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia. This signature can be used as a political tool and moral support to President Alvaro Uribe who is facing  too many cases of disappearances, deportations and killings, Europe will deal with him  to pay such absolution demanding privileges for their business. The agreement thus further strengthens the power of multinationals in pursuit of resources in Colombia at the expense of the local population. In January we published the call by France Latin America, and had opened a petition that none of the 340 politicians who read the appeal has signed ... It seems that Colombians can continue to suffer without disturbing world wide media attention.

The world has seen the adverse consequences of neoliberalism and "free trade" on the poorest populations. Those excluded from basic services like drinking water or health have less hope to get them when they are privatized and the supply of the population remains in the hands of monopolies that control the global trade. The neoliberal model has killed millions of people, victims of greed that threatens to break the system and destroy life on the planet. Therefore it is shameful that some governments insist on going further in a model that has benefited only the transnational corporations, and its nannies who are willing to bear the suffering people of  south at levels unimaginable .How can we understand that the Socialist Rodríguez Zapatero, President of the European Union and Spain, have offered this semester - as top priority - to sign a free trade agreement with Colombia? 

In this country of ours, 70% of the population is fed by the peasants who, despite the outburst of terror produce food for local markets at prices yet available. Our food we do not need to cross the European nor the WTO nor the laws of the market. If we go through them we know the famine that exists in Africa.  But our farmers have no support from the state to produce food, we do not have 70 billion dollars with which Europe subsidizes its agricultural production. A commercial treaty between these economies is so unequal that it breaks Colombian peasants and results in hunger spread over our country.  The impact on public health due to this trade agreement can be devastating. With lower wages to 200 € monthly majority of the Colombian population will remain excluded from access to private health services.The EU seeks to extend the period in Colombia in which monopolies pharmaceutical reimburse expenses incurred for its patents, it will increase drug prices to levels unaffordable for the Colombian population. 

The treaty opened the European transnational privilege to engulf the national companies, to plunder natural resources and have an almost free internal market, labor included. Why Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero insists he destroy what remains of food sovereignty and social security, whose defense has already cost us thousands of dead, Colombian trade unionists and peasants. Does he not know that he is selling arms and doing business with the most dangerous country in the world for union activity .Under the governance of Uribe Vélez (2 terms of 4 years) 587 trade unionists were murdered by the same digits of the Ministry of Interior of Colombia, including 39 last year.Do they in  Europe ignore that in Colombia more than 1 200 extrajudicial executions of civilians have been carried out by members of the national army with  absolute impunity and that the Colombian government itself has links with paramilitary groups, responsible for thousands of war crimes?

We are sure he knows, but he cares little. The Spanish Minister for Industry Tourism and Trade, Miguel Ángel Sebastián Gascón, justified in resorting to cynicism: "put a hold in the process of free trade will not improve the situation of human rights Colombia ... " The EU knows that Alvaro Uribe needs the signature of the Treaty of Free Trade [1] to inaugurate an acquittal by civilized Europe for the  crimes he commits, and profiting from the tragedy the Colombian people in order to get lucrative contracts  more important only for transnational corporations. The Colombian unions and colleges of European trade unions have asked the European Parliament that it do not ratify the trade agreement if the Uribe government does not improve the situation of human rights. But it matters little to European entrepreneurs. They have no heart, only pockets. Only contractors that are like vultures, because their record is "al caído, caerle" 'bankrupt''.

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Cananea Mine Battle Reveals Anti-Labor Offensive in Mexico, United States http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6694

Overshadowed by narco-violence, another showdown with far-reaching consequences is unfolding near the Mexico-U.S. border. Striking workers have occupied a Grupo Mexico-owned copper mine and vow to resist any company or government attempts to evict them from the premises. Last month, a Mexican federal court blocked legal efforts to uphold a labor contract.

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International Delegation Issues Preliminary Findings on Pre-electoral Conditions in Colombia http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6699

In certain regions like Barrancabermeja and Buenaventura, the mission was informed that despite an increase in police and military personnel on the ground, citizens do not have an overall sense of security and the homicide rate has been rising. Youth, indigenous people, and Afro-descendants face stigmatization within society and are often branded "undesirables." This creates a context of discrimination in which crimes against these sectors are often not fully investigated or prosecuted.

In various parts of the country, civil society organizations reported that supposedly demobilized paramilitary groups continue to act against the civilian population. They noted that an open strategy exists on the part of these groups to persecute leaders of Afro-Colombians, indigenous peoples, rural farmers, trade unionists, and human rights defenders and their organizations. Those interviewed reported cases of selective assassinations, extrajudicial executions, and forced disappearances among the leaders of these groups.

While officials claim that the paramilitary groups have demobilized, that they no longer exist, and that drug-trafficking rings have been dismantled and now represent only isolated expressions of violence, civilian groups we spoke to in the regions expressed grave concerns about these groups' continued presence and territorial control.

comment-also see...WOLA Supports International Pre-Electoral Observation Mission in Colombia http://www.wola.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=viewp&id=1069&Itemid=8

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Weekly News Update on the Americas http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/2010/03/wnu-1024-5-killed-in-peruvian-vendor.html

Colombia: Transport Strike Paralyzes BogotáOn the morning of Mar. 1 members of Bogotá’s Small Transport Providers Association (Apetrans), which represents about 90% of the Colombian capital’s transport owners and workers, pulled some 16,400 buses and collective taxis out of service in a dispute with Mayor Samuel Moreno Rojas over his plans for modernizing the city’s public transportation. Bogotá residents used trucks, bicycles and even vehicles drawn by animals to get to work and school in what most observers described as “chaos.”

On Mar. 3 Mayor Moreno ordered the closing of public schools to relieve the congestion caused by the strike and authorized the sharing of individual taxis and other alternative transportation methods. He also sent 500 extra police agents to the streets in collaboration with the army’s 13th Brigade.By the time the mayor and Apetrans president Alfonso Pérez reached an agreement on Mar. 4, the police claimed to have arrested at least 215 people for looting, attacks on transport or disorderly conduct. On the night of Mar. 2 some 300 youths reportedly destroyed a police station in the La Gaitana neighborhood in northwestern Bogotá. Businesses said their sales had fallen by 60%.

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Research Triangle Institute can be sued for deaths of Iraqi civilians http://www.ww4report.com/node/8432

A US federal judge has ruled that the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), a USAID-funded organization providing local governance services in Iraq, can be sued in the United States for the deaths of two Iraqi women killed by their security guards in Baghdad in October of 2007. The judge will also allow the victims' attorneys discovery on whether the security company, Unity Resources Group, has sufficient business contacts in the United States to be sued in a US court

Judge Shanstrom dismissed claims of war crimes and torture, holding that these acts cannot be committed by private corporations. In practical terms, this limits the legal theories the victims can use, to claims of wrongful death, negligence, assault, and so on. Although this part of the decision was disappointing, the case is now fairly simple, and should encourage other lawyers to bring similar actions on behalf of victims of other unjustified shootings in Iraq.

"We're looking forward to bringing the case against RTI to trial, and hopeful that their security contractor, Unity Resources Group, can also be held accountable in the United States," said Paul Wolf, who represents Jalal Askander, the father of the deceased passenger of the car, Genevia Jalal Antranick. "Not only for justice in this case, but to set an example to deter the reckless attitude many contractors have towards the lives of innocent civilians in Iraq."

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Biden pledges full US commitment to Israel security http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Biden_pledges_full_US_commitment_to_03092010.html

US Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday pledged Washington's full commitment to Israel's security while throwing his weight behind a renewal of Middle East peace talks after a 14-month hiatus."The cornerstone of the relationship is our absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel's security," Biden said after talks with hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

"Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel. There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security."He also stressed the US determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and demanded that Tehran stop its support of "terrorist organisations," which he said threaten both Israel and the United States.

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Funding Axe Sharpened by Canadian Foreign Policy http://mostlywater.org/funding_axe_sharpened_foreign_policy

Solidarity activists in Haiti have already seen R&D as advancing Canadian foreign policy agendas. R&D supported and legitimized the 2004 coup that overthrew Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. However, activists in solidarity with Colombia have noted R&D supports groups that denounce both President Uribe and the proposed Canada–Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Matas said he believes the dispute at R&D is specifically about the group's role in the Middle East. “Elsewhere in the world I can't see any change as a result of this controversy. ” However, with respect to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon—which were led by foreign-funded NGOs—he acknowledged the political objectives of R&D. 

“The notion that Canada might be seen to be independent of NGOs it finances through an arm's length organization has become illusory in light of the heightened suspicion of that sort of funding. The political objective of appearance of non-interference intended by the arm's length relationship is no longer attainable through a structure like Rights and Democracy,” he said. Allmand sees the dispute at R&D as part of the Conservative Government's broader approach. “Either by refusing or cutting funding, stacking boards, or refusing to cooperate, they’re cutting back on organizations that are supposed to be arm's length,” he said. “They're using these oganizations in partisan ways.”

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The New Jim Crow: the War on Drugs http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/new-jim-crow-war-on-drugs

The uncomfortable truth, however, is that crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years. Crime rates have fluctuated over the last few decades—they are currently are at historical lows—but imprisonment rates have consistently soared. Quintupled, in fact. And the vast majority of that increase is due to the War on Drugs. Drug offenses alone account for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal inmate population, and more than half of the increase in the state prison population.

The drug war has been brutal—complete with SWAT teams, tanks, bazookas, grenade launchers, and sweeps of entire neighborhoods—but those who live in white communities have little clue to the devastation wrought. This war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies consistently show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates. In fact, some studies indicate that white youth are significantly more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than black youth.Any notion that drug use among African Americans is more severe or dangerous is belied by the data. White youth, for example, have about three times the number of drug-related visits to the emergency room as their African American counterparts.

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VIDEO-Russel Tribunal says Sanction Israel http://tiny.cc/TwQUE

This week the Russell Tribunal on Palestine ruled in Barcelona, Spain on six questions concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Tribunal's judgements are not judicially binding but are meant to examine the complicity of the European Union in perpetuating what the Tribunal called Israel's "policy of war, occupation, and colonization for 60 years." The jurists were assembled from around the globe and issued their conclusions on Wednesday, March 3rd. Among the conclusions, the jury stipulated that Israel practices a form of apartheid.

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DOJ "Monsanto" antitrust probe just a sham http://iowaindependent.com/29231/coalition-to-host-townhall-in-advance-of-agriculture-antitrust-hearing

As Bill Bishop of The Daily Yonder notes, despite the DOJ’s calls for input from farmers and ranchers, only one out of more than 20 scheduled speakers at the Ankeny event is a person who makes his living on the land. There is a brief period at the end of the discussions that has been set aside for comments from those remaining in the audience.

In response, a coalition of local, state and national community, consumer, farmer and labor organizations are holding their own townhall meeting on Thursday, March 11, at the Best Western Hotel in Ankeny.“The corporate control of our food system by multinationals like Cargill, Monsanto and Wal-Mart is devastating to consumers, farmers, workers and the environment,” said Barb Kalbach, a fourth-generation family farmer from Dexter and member of one of the coalition groups, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.

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Israel 'to unveil plans to build nuclear power plant' http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6275BI20100308

Israel will this week unveil plans to produce nuclear-generated electricity, officials said on Monday, a move that could draw fresh international attention toward its assumed atomic arsenal.Israel already has two reactors -- the secretive Dimona facility in the Negev desert, where it is widely assumed to have produced nuclear weapons, and a research reactor, open to international inspection, at Nahal Soreq near Tel Aviv.

Landau had discussed with French Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo the possibility of cooperating on building a nuclear plant, together with neighboring Jordan, his ministry said. The project would be overseen by France and use French technology.

comment-it is illegal for us to give any aid to any nuclear power(nation)refusing to sign onto npt and trading in nuclear technology know how...can we cut the checks already?see...1976 The US passes the Symington Amendment of 1976. Symington Amendment prohibits most U.S. foreign aid to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside international safeguards. Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). http://www.irmep.org/ila/nukes/default.asp    Israeli Nuclear Arsenal Prohibits US Foreign Aid Under Symington http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/israeli-nuclear-arsenal-prohibits-us-foreign-aid-under-symington-amendment-61997392.html    symmington Amendment of 1976 and the Glenn Amendment of 1977 prohibits  US foreign aid to Israel http://www.auphr.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4445&Itemid=44

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16 Cities Sue Manufacturer Of Atrazine Weed-Killer For Contaminating Drinking Water http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/08/16-cities-sue-manufacture_n_490762.html#courtdoc

A coalition of communities in six Midwestern states filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to force the manufacturer of a widely-used herbicide to pay for its removal from drinking water.Atrazine, a weed-killer sprayed primarily on cornfields, can run off into rivers and streams that supply municipal water systems. As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reported in a series of articles last fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency failed to notify the public that atrazine had been found at levels above the federal safety limit in drinking water in at least four states.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois by 16 cities in Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa. The communities allege that Swiss corporation Syngenta AG and its Delaware counterpart Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. reaped billions of dollars from the sale of atrazine while local taxpayers were left with the financial burden of filtering the chemical from drinking water.

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For Sovereignty http://www.radiomundoreal.fm/From-resistance-to-power?lang=es

To mark the world women’s day on March 8th, the women from the grassroots movement La Via Campesina are carrying out demonstrations to expose the effects of agribusiness on the lives of peasant women.movilizaciones para denunciar los efectos del agronegocio sobre la vida de las campesinas.There were strong demonstrations in Brazil, the country where the “Fight Against Agribusiness and Violence: for Agrarian Reform and Food Sovereignty” took place.There, the women questioned the model imposed by the food transnational corporations, which they criticized because it does not respect the social rights of the population and it fails to improve their living conditions.“We defend alternatives like agroecology, co-op peasant farming, the production of healthy food.

The Agrarian Reform continues to be a democratizing and important measure to implement these proposals”, said Marina dos Santos, member of the national coordination of the Rural Landless Workers Movement of Brazil – which is part of La Via Campesina – in a communique issued by the organization.The demonstrations of peasant women included mobilizations in Sao Paulo, Rio do Janeiro, Parana, Ceara, Paraiba, Alagoas, Pernambuco, Minas Gerais, Tocantins, Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul.In the demonstrations the low percentage of women who have benefited by the rural public policies was exposed, as well as the fact that there are four million landless families in Brazil.

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Germany's Left Party Expelled From Parliament http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0227/1224265276499.html

Germanys left party was expelled from the national parliament Friday after its members held up signs bearing the names of Afghan civilians killed in a German-ordered airstrike last September. The protest came in the middle of a debate on extending Germany’s nine-year military mission to Afghanistan another year. The expulsion of the entire 76-member party, a first for the German parliament, underlined the controversy that still surrounds Germany’s first post-war military deployment outside Europe

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40 Years Later US Bombs Still Kill In Laos http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/03/06/40-years-later-us-bombs-still-kill-in-laos/

Laos and Cambodia are still struggling to get rid of a substantial number of unexploded bombs left behind by the US in the war on Vietnam. Between 1964 and 1973 in the heaviest aerial bombing in history the US dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos. Up to 30 percent did not detonate and may still be live causing at least 50,000 casualties since 1964. Unexploded ordnance still contaminates the ground affecting a quarter of all villages and preventing farmers access to much needed land too dangerous to plant crops in.