RIGHTS: U.S. Criticised over Soaring Housing Costs http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50567

On Friday, the richest and most powerful country on earth was the subject of a damning report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.The United States rarely finds itself brought before HRC, and issues of U.S. domestic policy seldom make their way into official U.N. proceedings. But Raquel Rolnik, a Brazilian architect and urban planner and the HRC's special rapporteur on adequate housing, found that U.S. housing practices were not in keeping with the agreed international framework on human rights.

During a visit to the U.S. this past September, she found that affordable housing was threatened by lending practices, reductions in public housing availability and the lack of a safety-net for poor families whose incomes are all but devoured by exploding housing costs. Her report also highlights homelessness in the United States, and looks at how the demolition of public housing units, housing foreclosure and exploitative "subprime" lending practices combined to create an "affordable housing crisis" in the U.S.

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Poverty in Venezuela fell from 70% in 1996 to 23% in 2009  http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_58770.shtml

Thanks to the policies of the Bolivarian Government poverty in Venezuela fell to 23% in 2009 from 70.3% in the second half of 1996 accompanied by 40% of extreme poverty and a record inflation rate of 103%.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mitziton: A Community in Chiapas Resisting a Government  http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/jessica-davies/2010/03/mitziton-community-chiapas-resisting-government-road

On Sunday 28 February, a major conflict took place in the Chiapan community of Mitziton, when around one hundred members of the evangelical ‘Army of God’, widely seen as a paramilitary group, attacked Other Campaign supporters in the community. Over 200 police attended, in ten police lorries, and the road between San Cristobal and Comitan was closed for many hours. Each side took three members of the other side hostage, and several people received bullet wounds from the guns of the Army of God or were beaten up. Huge fires were lit, and ambulances were prevented from getting in to treat the wounded. 

A statement from the community assembly tells how Other Campaign adherents were tied to poles blindfolded and left like this for twelve hours, “they were brutally beaten and tortured while they poured gasoline over them, saying ‘we are going to burn you alive’ ”. Agents of the State Preventive Police “were already in place, but when they heard the shots did nothing. They only approached when the aggression was over”. Government officials who were present “did nothing, only gave statements to the press to confuse people”.

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Philip Morris vs. Uruguay http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2390-philip-morris-vs-uruguay

Philip Morris International believes Uruguay is Marlboro Country. On February 19, the tobacco giant filed a lawsuit against that country, charging that new health measures involving cigarette packaging amount to unfair treatment of the company.Uruguay’s new legislation, submitted in June 2009 and expected to go into effect in March 2010, requires that 80 percent of each side of cigarette boxes be covered by graphic images of the possible detrimental health effects of smoking. The company argues that the law limits the space for branding and thus infringes on its intellectual property rights.Ironically, the U.S.-based Philip Morris is filing its claim under a bilateral investment treaty between Uruguay and Switzerland, even though that European country became the most recent nation to adopt strict cigarette packaging rules on January 1, 2010.

Philip Morris has its headquarters in New York but its operations center in Lausanne, Switzerland. The firm is famous for Marlboros (the world’s top-selling cigarette) and controls around 15 percent of the international cigarette market outside the United States.This case echoes many others currently underway in developing regions, where powerful corporations from the developed north seek to take advantage of “investor protections,” under trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties, to ensure profits at any cost. Such claims are decided by international arbitration tribunals that cannot force a country to repeal its laws but can award massive compensation to the foreign investor.

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Africa Aims to Regulate 'Mercenary' Industry http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/05-8

Twenty-five African states agreed Friday to step up efforts to regulate mercenary activity on the continent amid an explosion of private security companies on the continent.Jose Luis Gomez del Prado, from the UN committee on mercenaries, told the meeting the largely U.S.- and British-based industry, worth many billions of dollars a year, had boomed in African and across the world.

"With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have seen this embryonic industry explode. There is a new dimension with the piracy in Somalia," he said.Private security "multinationals", 70-80 per cent of which were based in the United States or Britain, were recruiting around the world, he said, adding there was an "osmosis" between these groups and typical mercenaries.

comment-also see...Executive Outcomes http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Executive_Outcomes    Mercenary Report Card http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/MercenaryReportCard.html    Marketing the New 'Dogs of War' http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Weapons/New_Dogs_War_MAK.html 

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U.S. Embassy in Beirut is a "State within a State" http://www.voltairenet.org/article164355.html

The daily newspaper As-Safir published copies of a correspondence exchange between the United States Embassy in Beirut and the General Command of the Lebanese Security Forces. It resulted in the United States obtaining access to all data from all mobile telephone operators making it possible to listen in to all conversations and to trace phone locations.Another daily, Al-Binaa, revealed that Beirut airport is being restructured so that the U.S. Embassy can have its own entry point and be able to move personnel and material in and out without undergoing any control.Nawaf al-Moussawi, Hezbollah member of the Lebanese Parliament, has denounced the creation of a "State within a State".

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After the Games: British Columbia's Hangover Begins http://mostlywater.org/after_games_british_columbias_hangover_begins

Budget Day in BC hit like a brick yesterday. After all the empty patriotism and uncritical headlines in Vancouver mainstream media that glossed over 8 years of democratic distortion, which approached neo-authoritarianism at times, the sad reality of Olympic opportunity costs are about to hit daylight.

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Colombia’s illegitimate Congress http://colombiareports.com/opinion/the-colombiamerican/8556-colombias-illegitimate-congress.html

As the congressional elections draw near, it is already clear that they will be riddled with fraud and corruption. The next generation of Colombian leaders will likely include more than a handful of crooks and criminals.Elections in major cities are also at risk. According to Semana, a Colombian news weekly, buying a vote is actually cheaper in Bogota and Cali, where a vote costs about US$10 to $15, than in the Bolívar department on the coast, where the average cost rises to about $25. In mid-size cities, a vote can be as cheap as US$7. Reports suggest that nearly every political party across the ideological spectrum engages in vote-buying, but a few parties stand out as particularly sleazy.

Several congressmen told Semana that the practice became more common after the emergence of the ADN and PIN, two young pro-Uribe parties.Another source of illegal funding is drug money. Drug traffickers and warlords have not slowed their efforts to buy political allies, although their methods have become more sophisticated. Two decades ago, drug lords like Pablo Escobar ran for national office. Today, they make campaign donations to friends in Congress. And if those Congressmen happen to be sent to jail, then the drug lords simply pay for the jailed person's relatives to run for office.

Here again, the ADN and PIN are the worst offenders. The short-lived ADN’s constituent assembly contained several jailed politicians before the party had to close. After that, many former ADN members joined the PIN, another young uribista party, which is no cleaner than the ADN. Both parties had a disproportionately high number of candidates on a list published by Colombian daily El Espectador of the fifty shadiest candidates in the legislative elections. Several PIN candidates had direct business, political or family ties with imprisoned politicians, paramilitaries and mafiosos. Others are suspected of engaging in corrupt activities in their previous local- and department-level positions.

comment-also see...Colombian drug lord backed Uribe http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=92383&sectionid=351020703

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Debra Medina, The Neocon Establishment and 9/11 Truth http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php?did=15960

Do I know what happened? No. But so many people in our country have bought the official story hook, line and sinker, that they will defend their belief and the government who created that belief to their grave. However, if the official story was the truth, than why are there so many millions of intelligent, bright, well-meaning and honest people around the world still questioning the official story 8 years after the fact?

Is it perhaps because there is overwhelming proof and mountains of evidence that the official story is a fabrication of lies and disinformation designed to keep the public from discovering the real orchestrators of the biggest mass murder on American soil in our history? And why is it that whenever anyone asks the questions, they are immediately labeled as a kook, a loon, or simply a crazy "conspiracy theorist"? Good question. What is it "they" have to hide? Why haven't the hundreds of questions been answered? Since when did free speech in America and questioning our government become something with which to attack people? Where did it all go so wrong?

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Venezuela Again Highlights Advances in Fight Against Drugs http://www.embavenez-us.org/news.php?nid=5281

In the wake of the State Department’s biased annual report on international efforts to fight drugs, Venezuela’s Ministry of Interior and Justice, which oversees the battle against drug trafficking, highlighted the many advances made in fighting drugs in Venezuela throughout 2009.

The ministry reported that 60 tons of drugs were seized in 2009, an 11 percent increase from 2008. Additionally, 8,000 people were arrested for drug-related offenses, notably 14 drug kingpins – four of whom were deported to the U.S. to face charges. Venezuelan authorities destroyed 26 drug laboratories and engaged in operations targeting drug cultivations along the border with Colombia. For the fourth year in a row, the Venezuelan side of the border was declared free of illegal drug cultivations. More than 456 properties worth $116 million were seized during criminal investigations. 

Three crime laboratories, 10 drug incineration centers and five cargo-inspection systems at airports with international service were built. A National Anti-Drug Fund was created to finance prevention programs, and more than 130,000 Venezuelans were trained as “prevention advisors.” Kits to detect illegal drugs and crime investigation equipment were provided to police departments – both of which the U.S. had refused to sell to Venezuela.Several international agreements and commitments were ratified, including the XIX Meeting of the Heads of National Drug Law Enforcement Agencies (HONLEA), where the United Nations recognized Venezuela’s efforts in fighting drug trafficking http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?OpenAgent&DS=A/64/92&Lang=S

Additionally, a report issued by the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) described Venezuela’s achievements in the fight against drug trafficking. The report, published on February 24, 2010, highlighted three achievements – the strengthening of measures to combat money laundering, the implementation of the National Anti-Drug Plan and monitoring of substances not currently under international monitoring laws. 

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The Terrorist Attack on La Coubre: Washington still Silent 50 Years Later BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/the-terrorist-attack-on-la-coubre-washington-still-silent-50-years-later-2/

In spite of Cuba’s repeated denunciations about the responsibility of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the blowing up, on March 4, 1960, of the French ship La Coubre in Havana harbour, the government of the United States, fifty years later, continues to conceal the documents in its archives.This fact was confirmed on Friday (February 26), when, in response to an information request, officials from the National Security Archives, a non-governmental project of academic investigation of the George Washington University, confirmed that they do not have any documents on the matter from the US intelligence organs.

The only available documents, which can be accessed through the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) and that are destined for the students and staff of the aforementioned university, are “two brief chronological references” and a document that is also a chronology “with more information” than the previous two, they admitted.There are no references to La Coubre in the group of unpublished collections of the institution, the curators stated.This confirms how the country, the propaganda apparatus of which constantly generates bombardments of defamation against Cuba, didn’t manage to present a single document in half a century, not even a distorted one, on the tragedy that resulted in the death of nearly one hundred people, exactly 50 years ago this March 4.

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Putting an End to the Government of Hugo Chavez: The US’ Options http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/putting-an-end-to-the-government-of-hugo-chavez-the-us-options/

Argentinean political scientist Atilio Boron included assassinationamong the alternatives planned by the United States to put an end to the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, as part of a strategic plan to take control of South America again.These projects are for 2010, said Boron, while warning about the immediacy of these intentions on the part of the administration of Barack Obama with the purpose of defeating the Bolivarian project and therefore weaken other progressive governments in the region.

During a panel held on Thursday at the 12th International Meeting on Globalization and Development Problems, Boron denounced that the death of Chavez has not been discarded, by way of an assassination attempt or by “accidental death”, he said satirizing.What the US imperialism is giving careful consideration is popular reaction in Venezuela and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean against an action of this nature, an also of the armed forces of the South American country.