Texas Prosecutes Little Old Ladies for Voter Fraud, Let's Republican Ballot Box Stuffers Go Free

AlterNet

Willie Ray was a 69-year-old African-American City Council member from Texarkana who wanted her granddaughter, Jamillah Johnson, to learn about civil rights and voting during the 2004 presidential election. The pair helped homebound seniors citizens get absentee ballots, and once they were filled out, put them in the mail.


Fort Worth's Gloria Meeks, 69, was a church-going, community activist who proudly ran a phone bank and helped homebound elderly people like Parthenia McDonald, 79, to vote by mail. McDonald, whose mailbox was two blocks away from her home (she recently died), called Meeks "an angel" for helping her, a friend of both women said.


And until he recently moved out of state, Walter Hinojosa, a retired school teacher and labor organizer from Austin, was another Democratic Party volunteer who helped elderly and disabled people vote by getting them absentee ballots and mailing them.


Today, Ray and Johnson have criminal records for breaking Texas election law and faced travel restrictions during a six-month probation. Gloria Meeks is in a nursing home after having a stroke, prompted in part, her friends say, by state police who investigated her -- including spying on Meeks while she bathed -- and then questioned her about helping McDonald and others to vote. Hinojosa, meanwhile, has left Texas.


Their crime: not signing their name, address and signature on the back of the ballots they mailed for their senior neighbors, and carrying envelopes containing those ballots to the mailbox. Since 2005, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, has been prosecuting Democratic Party activists, almost all African-Americans and Latinos, as part of an effort to eradicate what he said was an "epidemic" of voter fraud in Texas.


[..]In February 2008, Abbott indicted four Duval County residents, Lydia Molina, 70, Maria Soriano, 71, Elva Lazo, 62, Maria Trigo, 55, for allegedly delivering "mail-in ballot applications to numerous residents in Duval County, many of whom were ineligible to vote by mail," his press release said. Under Texas law, only the disabled, people 65 or older, or people expecting to be out of state on Election Day can vote absentee. The accused checked a box saying voters were disabled "when they were not," he said, referring to their actions in the 2006 election.


"The voter registrar's office then mailed the actual ballots to the residents," Abbott's release said. "Once the ballots were completed by the residents, the defendants allegedly retrieved these and mailed them to the registrar to be counted without identifying themselves on the carrier envelope." They face six months and a $2,000 fine.


[..]Despite Abbott's repeated declarations nobody is above Texas law, he has prosecuted no Republicans.


"What is especially troubling is that while Greg Abbott's office has prosecuted minority seniors for simply mailing ballots, he has not prosecuted anyone on the other side of the aisle for what appear to be open and shut cases of real voter fraud," Hebert told Texas House Elections Committee, on January 25, 2008, as the panel held a hearing on a bill making the state's voter I.D. laws tougher.


Hebert cited a 2005 election in Highland Park, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country with hundreds of million-dollar homes and where both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lived before the 2000 election. In 2005, two election judges, both Republicans, and a 10-year-old boy handed out over 100 ballots, Hebert testified, without checking any voter registration cards or IDs. The ballots were filled out and turned in, he said, quoting from several Dallas District Attorney memos that suggested there was a strong basis for prosecuting the judges for not following procedures and counting "over 100 more ballots" that there were "signatures on the roster."

Meet the Real McCain!

Meet the Real McCain!

When it comes to issues of choice and reproductive freedom, John McCain is not what he appears to be.


The fact is, during a quarter century in Congress, Sen. McCain has shown nothing but contempt for our reproductive freedoms. Funding for discredited Bush "abstinence-only" programs - he's for it. Access to birth control and family-planning services - he's against it. Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court - he's for them.


NARAL Pro-Choice America has launched a campaign to introduce voters to McCain's extreme anti-choice record. In order to win back the White House in November, 327,001 people must meet the REAL McCain.


Copy and past the URL below into your browser to join me and tell the world that you know the truth - that you've met the REAL McCain.
https://secure2.convio.net/choice/site/Advocacy?id=457&pagename=homepage&autologin=true


Did you know that of 130 choice-related votes that have come up since he's been in Congress, John McCain has voted anti-choice 125 times?


Did you know that he has repeatedly voted to stack our courts with judges who want to repeal Roe v. Wade?


Did you know that John McCain wants more funding for "abstinence-only" programs and less access to birth control?


This is the REAL McCain -- one of the anti-choice movement's most faithful footsoldiers for the last 25 years. He's even said, "I have many, many votes and it's been consistent. And I've gotten a consistent zero from NARAL throughout all those years." [National Review, March 5, 2007]


Please click here to confirm that you have met the REAL McCain, the anti-choice extremist whom we must keep out of the White House.


It's time for a little straight talk. Don't let the Republican nominee pose as a moderate while winking and nodding in the direction of anti-choice forces.


Thank you

US rejects new Pakistani government intended talks with militants

America is the center of the world! How could Pakistani dare have a different view?
So what is Bush going to do? I suppose he could finance a Musharraf coup.
M&C

A senior US official on Thursday opposed the new Pakistani government's intended talks with pro-Taliban militants who have launched a series of suicide attacks on security forces in recent months.


'I don't see how you can talk to those kind of people,' said US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, adding they 'want to destroy our way of life.' [Whose way of life? US or Pakistani?]


The visiting envoy said the 'extremist threat' in Pakistan is a cause of great concern. 'It occurs not only in federally administered tribal areas but it has spread to the settled areas,' he told reporters in the southern city of Karachi at the end of his four-day visit to the country.


Pakistan's tribal areas are believed to be safe havens for al- Qaeda and Taliban militants, who fled to the area after the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Initially, the foreign fighters and their local supporters used the region to launch cross-border attacks on NATO-led forces in Afghanistan.


[..] 'The White House and its team must now restrain themselves in further meddling in Pakistan's affairs. The people of Pakistan and their elected representatives must now be left alone to chalk out a brighter future for every one in the country,' wrote the liberal English-language newspaper The News.


Another English-newspaper, Dawn, said in an editorial that people had to 'suffer the wrath of the militants who identify the (Pakistani) state with the Americans. A discrete stance on the part of US might prove to be slightly more helpful.'

Both Bill Clinton and Bush Suppressed Science of Global Warming

AlterNet

AMY GOODMAN: So, before we go on to the Bush administration, where you did have the most trouble, can you talk about what happened during the Clinton years and how you were able to express or not your research?


DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, the one particular event that stands out in my mind is when I wrote a paper called "Global Warming in the 21st Century: An Alternative Scenario," in which I emphasized that it's not only carbon dioxide, but other climate forcings -- methane and black soot -- and we need to address those also. And for some reason, the people in the White House didn't like emphasis on the non-CO2 parts of the story, and I just -- the press release just kept coming back, and I would try to change it, they would change it, and finally I gave up. I just couldn't get a press release through the way I wanted it.


JUAN GONZALEZ: So, in essence, in these kinds of press releases, there's a back-and-forth, as the White House or the environmental people at the White House --


DR. JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.


JUAN GONZALEZ: -- edit your press releases?


DR. JAMES HANSEN: Yeah. And that's another strange thing, because they don't even admit that it's going to the White House. You know, it goes to NASA headquarters, and then it sort of disappears for a couple weeks. And where is it? Well, it's very often at the White House, and I mentioned that. And now, they tried not to make that known, you know? And that's, again, something that's very inappropriate, in my opinion. And again, it's happened in both administrations.


AMY GOODMAN: So let's talk about what happened when the Bush administration came in. You were continuing to do your research. First of all, explain your place of work and the significance of NASA Goddard.


DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, NASA is important, I think, because of the global observations that we make from satellites. We see what's happening, for example, on Greenland and then West Antarctica. My laboratory is also involved in the global models that try to interpret what's happening. And we're also located at Columbia University, where we have the opportunity to work with people who have the data from the history of the earth over thousands and millions of years. You put together these different things -- the satellite information, the information on how the earth responded in the past when greenhouse gases changed and other things changed, and the models -- and then you get a picture of how the system works.


And that's what really concerns me, because it's the inertia of the system which tells us we're already pushing it, so that it's going to respond more over the next several decades. There's a lot more climate response which is already in the pipeline, that we haven't seen it yet, and that's why we have to have an understanding of what's happening, so we can take the actions now before it's too late.

Conflict in Basra Tests a Budding Nation

This may be make or break time for the Maliki government. What is not clear is al Sadr's role in all this. His encouragement of civil disobedience seems milk-toast for the ruthless he is. Has he been bought off my the US to let the Iraqi gov't pacify his restive militia. The US has already paid him $300 million in "reconstruction" funds. That seems like the best explanation to me. He has much to lose holding back his militia now. They will feel abandoned.
New York Times

A day after launching a huge operation that ignited heavy fighting in two of Iraq’s largest cities, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki gave the Shiite militias controlling the southern oil city of Basra an ultimatum on Wednesday: lay down their weapons within 72 hours or face more severe consequences.


As the fighting in Basra and Baghdad intensified on Wednesday, the American military command, speaking for the first time about the crackdown, characterized it as an Iraqi-led operation in which American-led forces were playing only an advisory role. An Iraqi hospital official said that the battle in Basra between Iraqi forces and Shiite militias led by Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric, had so far claimed the lives of 40 people and wounded at least 200, figures that include militia members as well as Iraqi officers.


The fighting threatens to destabilize a long-term truce that had helped reduce the level of violence in the five-year-old Iraq war. Mr. Maliki, who considered the operation so important that he traveled to the city to direct the fighting himself, issued his ultimatum on Iraqi state television.


“Those who were deceived into carrying weapons must deliver themselves and make a written pledge to promise they will not repeat such action within 72 hours,” he said. “Otherwise, they will face the most severe penalties.”


An American military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, repeatedly sought on Wednesday to distance Western forces from the operation, saying that Mr. Maliki and his security ministers planned and carried it out on their own. He said American-led forces were on standby.


Nearly 16,000 Iraqi police officers and 9,014 Iraqi Army troops were involved in the operation, which General Bergner said was not specifically aimed at Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army. “This is about criminal activity,” he said. “This is about those who are not respecting the rule of law.”

President Musharraf To Swear In Yousuf Raza Gilani as Prime Minister?

President Musharraf is supposed to swear In Yousuf Raza Gilani as Prime Minister. Gilani is expected to ask Musharraf to resign or face impeachment. I expect Musharraf has something up his sleave since he certainly will not allow an impeachment. Hopefully, he is working towards a face saving transition of power, rather hoping to lead the next coup. He is a master of duplicity, so I will not predict his course, but I do think he would have resigned unless he saw a more favorable outcome. Favorable only to him.
VOA News

It came as no surprise that Yousuf Raza Gilani was selected Monday by the Parliament to become Pakistan's 22nd prime minister. He was put forward for prime minister Saturday by the Pakistan Peoples Party, which is the largest in the new parliament.


The runner-up in last month's national balloting, the party headed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, also pledged to support Mr. Gilani.


Assembly speaker Fahmid Mirza announced Mr. Gilani received 264 votes of the 342-seat lower house.


[..]Mr. Gilani, in his first significant act, also ordered the immediate release of all judges who had been detained by President Musharraf. Within minutes, barricades began coming down in Islamabad where some of the judges had been under house arrest for months.


Mr. Gilani will be sworn in by the president Tuesday morning. It will be a poignant moment as the embattled and unpopular Mr. Musharraf installs a government formed by his chief political opponents. Some in the new government will press the former army general to resign or, failing that, will likely move to begin impeachment proceedings.


[..]History does not bode well for Mr. Gilani serving out a full five-year term. No prime minister in Pakistan's history has ever stayed that long in office; many having been removed by presidential decree or military coups.

It will take more than one great speech for Obama to reassure some Democrats

International Herald Tribune

David Eisenhower teaches a class at the University of Pennsylvania on American political speeches. Senator Barack Obama, with his address last week on race and politics, gave him a new course.


"It was a very powerful speech," said Eisenhower, whose grandfather was president of the United States and supreme allied commander in World War II. "Obama gives a very compelling reason as to why this is his time."


The Obama speech was necessitated by videotapes of his former pastor assailing the United States and its white majority. With his presidential fortunes at risk, the Illinois Democrat could have simply disassociated himself from those remarks and the preacher, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr.


Instead, while addressing that issue, he used it as an opportunity to talk about the larger question of race in America. He did it with a candor rare in politics.


There have been analogies to John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech on his Catholicism before a group of Protestant ministers in Houston. Eisenhower said it was more like Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 talk to a black audience in Indianapolis, when he informed the gathering that Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed.


In that speech, Bobby Kennedy said people had a choice between turning justifiable anger into "greater polarization" or channeling it into something positive to get beyond racial divisions. Last week in Philadelphia, Obama said whites and blacks also faced a choice this year of continuing racial differences and stereotypes or beginning a conversation about common ground.


Most powerful were the parallels he drew between black and white anger in America. The lack of opportunities and services has "helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt" black communities, he said.


Similarly, most working- and middle-class white Americans "don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race," he said, and when they hear that blacks are getting ahead because of race, "resentment builds."


Kennedy 40 years ago acknowledged that blacks would be bitter that a white man had killed King; he reminded them that a white man had also killed his brother, the president. Obama, in criticizing his former minister's incendiary, racially tinged rhetoric, also noted that his white grandmother, who raised him with great love, had made hurtful anti-black remarks.


"Like Robert Kennedy, Obama used this as a teaching moment," Eisenhower said.


Obama, 46, spoke passionately about his multiracial background and experiences and how unique America was in affording someone like him unlimited opportunity.


It may not work. His challenges are daunting.


Not surprisingly, political opponents have seized on this controversy and trashed the speech. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House, called it "fundamentally dishonest" and said Obama avoided making a "candid report."


Gingrich, one of the most ethically challenged figures in recent American politics, often became embroiled in controversy; during those times, he was a stranger to candor.


More important for Obama was not turning off his base of black voters. On this he succeeded. "I didn't think he could pull it off," says Donna Brazile, who was Al Gore's campaign manager in his 2000 presidential run and is black. "Even the master, Bill Clinton, couldn't have pulled this off, but Obama did."


Still, she isn't sure how it will play out. "I don't know if his opponents and voters are mature enough to handle this conversation."


[..]David Eisenhower's family has a bona fide Republican pedigree. His wife, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, is the daughter of President Richard Nixon. Last month this lifelong Republican family gave $2,000 to Obama.

Duma wants Putin to back Georgian separatists

International Herald Tribune

Parliament on Friday urged the Kremlin to consider recognizing the independence of two separatist regions in neighboring Georgia, stepping up Moscow's campaign to keep the former Soviet republic out of NATO.


The lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, voted overwhelmingly to adopt a statement calling on President Vladimir Putin and the government to "consider the question of the expediency of recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia."


The statement also says the government should speed up efforts to support the sovereignty of the two regions in case Georgia "accelerated" its drive to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, suggesting that Moscow should move swiftly toward recognizing the regions if the alliance puts Georgia on track for membership at a meeting next month.


The vote was 440 to 0 in the 450-seat chamber.


The statement calls on the government to increase support for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgian government control after the 1991 Soviet breakup and have made renewed calls for international recognition since Kosovo's Western-backed declaration of independence.


Moscow has granted most of the regions' residents Russian citizenship and has backed them in disputes with the government of Georgia's pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili, but it formally recognizes Georgia's territorial integrity.


The Duma is dominated by Putin's United Russia party and would not adopt a declaration opposed by the Kremlin. But while the statement is certain to draw sharp protests from Georgia, its adoption is unlikely to lead to swift Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.


Russia opposed Kosovo's independence declaration and warned that Western recognition would encourage separatist movements worldwide. The Duma statement said the regions have "far greater grounds to seek international recognition than Kosovo does."


But Putin said last month that Moscow would not copy Western support for Kosovo by rushing to recognize the Georgian regions as independent - a move that would badly damage Moscow's relations with the West, ruin its claim to the moral high ground in the dispute over Kosovo and potentially spark war with Georgia.


Instead, coming amid Saakashvili's push to join NATO, the threat of recognition appears aimed at pressuring the alliance not to put it on track for membership at an alliance summit meeting from April 2 to 4 in Bucharest.


Moscow is determined to prevent Georgia - a battleground in its struggle with the West for sway on a key energy route - from joining the alliance.

Blogs and Politics Survey 2008

Stony Brook University Blog Survey

We would like your help with an important research project being conducted by the Stony Brook University Department of Political Science. This survey is part of an effort to better understand the role of internet communication in American politics, and to examine opinions about the 2008 election among people who use blogs. We would like answers from people who vary in their knowledge and interest in politics.

Bin Laden Moves to Reclaim Jihadi Leadership

Al Jazeera English

Osama bin Laden has said that the best way for Muslims to help Palestinians is to support Iraqis fighting against the government and US forces.


In the audiotape, which was the second to be released by the al-Qaeda leader in 24 hours, he also accused Arab leaders of backing the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.


"The nearest jihad battlefield to support our people in Palestine is the battlefield of Iraq … It should be taken care of and supported," he said the audiotape released on Thursday.


"Palestine cannot be retaken by negotiations and dialogue, but with fire and iron".


The tape, whose authenticity could not be immediately verified, came a day following another audio message in which bin Laden warned Europe of a "reckoning" for publishing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed.


Addressing the "intelligent ones" in the European Union, the speaker said publishing the "insulting drawings" was a greater crime than Western forces targeting Muslim villages and killing women and children.


"The reckoning for it will be more severe," he said.


Bin Laden said in the message that the publication of the cartoons was part of a "new crusade" involving Pope Benedict.


The Vatican rejected the accusations.

"The suffocating siege imposed upon the Gaza Strip came into existence after the support offered by the Arab governments to the US and Zionist entity in Annapolis at the expense of the resistance in Palestine," the voice said.

Poll finds broad pessimism over economy

Yahoo! News

More than three in four Americans think the United States is in a recession according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll released on Tuesday. Not since September 1992, two months before President George H.W. Bush lost his re-election bid, have so many Americans said the economy was in such bad shape, USA Today reported.


Seventy-six percent of to those polled said the economy is in recession, compared to 22 percent who said it is not, USA Today said. Asked if the United States could slip into a depression lasting several years, 59 percent said it was likely and 79 percent said they were worried about it, the newspaper reported. The poll was completed on Sunday,

AlterNet

Remember - and don't let any of your acquaintances forget - what we're experiencing is a direct result of GOP fiscal policies that began during Ronald Reagan's reign, and that were elevated to the high art of social theft during the Bush years.


The GOP pyramid scheme is collapsing.

Lee Atwater, prototype for Karl Rove, shortly before his death at age 40 in 1991.

My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The ’80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn’t I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn’t I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don’t know who will lead us through the ’90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

Protests Spread Across South China; Dalai Lama Threatens To 'Resign'

Why does China care about Tibet? They remember well how the Mayor of Moscow brought down the Soviet Union. What's happening in Tibet could lead to a fracturing China, similar to what happened to the USSR.
ABC News

Protests and killing spread across Tibet today, in defiance of the Chinese government's crackdown on the protests in Lhasa that began more than a week ago on the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule. There were protests today across the Tibetan plateau, including in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Kham and Amdo.


[..]The fact that the protests are spreading to towns and villages is a significant development. "If it's happening in bigger places, that's understandable. But if it's going to start to spread to smaller rural villages and then towns, then they're really in trouble," said Robert Barnett, a professor of contemporary Tibetan studies at Columbia University. The next question is whether the protests continue, knowing that there is a high level of shooting death," he said. "If the protests go on beyond that point, that's a very serious indicator that people are questioning if the Chinese have earned the position that they've taken to be the rulers."

The Dalai Lama is caught between a rock and a hard place. He is a committed pacifist. Yet he feels for his people's frustration. The young in Tibet are not so tied to his words and have in fact asked him to NOT call for an end to the protests. He has agreed. But he is prepared to do everything else.
Al Jazeera English

The Dalai Lama has said he will resign as Tibet's spiritual leader if the unrest in his homeland worsens, while rejecting Chinese allegations that he was behind it.


He was reacting to a claim by China's prime minister that groups aligned with him are responsible for the violent protests against Chinese rule in Tibet. Wen Jiabao had said earlier on Tuesday that "there is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique".


The Dalai Lama responded that "if things are getting out of control, then the option is to completely resign. This movement is beyond our control."


The Dalai Lama's comments came as the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, northern India, said 19 Tibetan protesters were shot dead in China's Gansu province on Tuesday. It said that a total of 99 people had died after a week of unrest. China says Tibetan rioters killed 13 civilians during the protests in Lhasa, and that the Chinese government did not use lethal force to quell the rioting. Speaking from Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama said he was not in a position to tell Tibetans living under Chinese rule to "do this or do not do that".


The Dalai Lama also said that independence for Tibet was "out of the question". "We must build good relations with the Chinese," he said. The Dalai Lama appealed for calm in Tibet, saying: "Don't commit violence, it is not good. Violence is against human nature, violence is almost suicide. Even if 1,000 Tibetans sacrifice their lives, it will not help. "We should not develop anti-Chinese feelings. We must live together side by side."


[..]Qiangba Puncog, the Chinese-installed governor of Tibet, set the deadline for midnight on Monday, warning of "harsh" treatment for those who refused to surrender. There was little indication of any protesters having surrendered after the deadline. On Tuesday the US-funded Radio Free Asia reported that hundreds of people were being rounded up by security forces, in a possible sign of an intensified crackdown.

Another good article from Al Jazeera English on the history of the Tibet/China relationship

Once a warlike kingdom, Tibet adopted Buddhism 1,300 years ago and successive reincarnations of the Dalai Lama have been its spiritual and temporal leader over the past three centuries.


China and Tibet have vied for control of the 'roof of the world' since they first established contact in the 7th century. In 1720 China claimed suzerainty over Tibet, but control was often superficial. There is a well-documented history of Tibetan rulers declaring their independence from China. But the Chinese say the presence of a Chinese high commissioner as early as 1727 proved Lhasa owed its loyalty to them.


Later Tibet became caught up in the 'Great Game' between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia when British troops invaded Tibet and occupied Lhasa in 1904. The invasion led to a peace treaty between Britain and Tibet, a document some Tibetan historians claim as recognition of their remote mountain homeland as an independent state. Imperial China was outraged by the invasion but could do nothing to stop it, and waged a diplomatic battle to protect its claims on Tibet.


Following years of Tibet's unsuccessful attempts to gain international recognition as a nation, Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong ordered its "liberation," and by 1950 Tibet had become an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. This arrangement was an unhappy one, however, resulting in the suppression of an uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 which led to the death of tens of thousands of Tibetans and the Dalai Lama's flight to his present exile in India.


Today China's government insists it is helping to improve and develop what was once a feudal society.

Ozone Rules Illegally Weakened at Bush's Behest

washingtonpost.com

The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA. EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.


"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.


The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.

Petraeus Admits the Surge Has Failed

WAPO

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.


Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

FOX ATTACKS! Obama Part 2: Spreading the virus

Fox is a Republican mouthpiece, not a legitimate news organization. Real news organizations must reject Fox's smears of Barack Obama, not parrot them.

Do Something!

Fascism in Amerika?

Is Bush a Facist? You tell me.

Clinton's Foreign Policy Experience Claims Are Exaggerated

Newsweek.com

On March 6 Hillary Clinton claimed that, unlike Barack Obama, she and likely Republican nominee John McCain have "cross[ed] the commander-in-chief threshold." In a CNN interview the day before, Clinton had listed five foreign policy accomplishments. We can't determine how much behind-the-scenes work Clinton did while first lady, and she certainly took an active interest in foreign policy when her husband was president. Moreover, her time as first lady plus her longer Senate career do give Clinton more foreign policy experience than Obama. But the public record of her actions shows that many of Clinton's foreign policy claims are exaggerated.


Clinton claims to have "negotiated open borders" in Macedonia to fleeing Kosovar refugees. But the Macedonian border opened a full day before she arrived, and her meetings with Macedonian officials were too brief to allow for much serious negotiating.


Clinton's activities "helped bring peace to Northern Ireland." Irish officials are divided as to how helpful Clinton's actions were, and key players agree that she was not directly involved in any actual negotiations.


Clinton has repeatedly referenced her "dangerous" trip to Bosnia. She fails to mention, however, that the Bosnian war had officially ended three months before her visit – or that she made the trip with her 16-year-old daughter and two entertainers.


Both Bill and Hillary Clinton claim that Hillary privately championed the use of U.S. troops to stop the genocide in Rwanda. That conversation left no public record, however, as U.S. policy was explicitly to stay out of Rwanda, and officials say that the use of U.S. troops was never considered.


Clinton's tough speech on human rights delivered to a Beijing audience is as advertised, though Clinton herself has been dismissive of speeches that aren't backed by solutions.

Laos' 'Lost Tribe' In Plea For Help

The truth about America's wars is stark and never told. Here we see the results of our last war. Our allies have been hunted to genocide, few remain alive and clearly they will be wiped out soon.
The Shia in Iraq know the fickle nature of the US alliance. They died by the thousands after the first Gulf War. More Iraqis will die every day, and a massacre will surely come after the US military leaves Iraq. Sectarian genocide results from an alliance with the US in war.
Read the whole story.
Al Jazeera English

Al Jazeera's correspondent Tony Birtley travelled in secret to the jungles of northern Laos in search of the last fighters of the CIA's "secret army", a remnant from the days of the Vietnam War. This is his account of his journey.

Ferraro Makes Power Look Right-on

Geraldine Ferraro's comments about Obama being a candidate only because he is black, and then Clinton's refusal to dismiss her from her finance committee makes Obama's former advisor Power called Hillary a "monster".
More in AlterNet

Hamas Sets Terms; Israel Expands Settlements

Secret negotiations are underway between Hamas and Israel with Egypt as the go between. Hamas has gone public showing it's strength relative to Israel.
The Associated Press

Gaza's Hamas prime minister publicly set his conditions Wednesday for a cease-fire with Israel to end the fighting that has killed dozens in recent weeks. Ismail Haniyeh demanded an end to Israeli military activity in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, a lifting of Israeli economic sanctions and the opening of Gaza's borders, which have been sealed since the Islamic militant group seized control of the territory last June. "We are talking about a mutual, comprehensive calm, which means that the enemy must fulfill its obligations," Haniyeh said in a speech at Gaza's Islamic University. "The Israelis must stop the aggression ... including assassinations and invasions, end the sanctions and open the borders."


With U.S. backing, Egypt has been trying to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas following an especially bloody round of fighting that left five Israelis and more than 120 Palestinians dead over the past two weeks. "There are efforts by the Egyptian brothers who are working on this issue. We as Palestinians are waiting for the Israeli answers," Haniyeh said. "The ball is in Israel's court."


The fighting has subsided in recent days, but both sides have denied talk of a formal truce.

Meanwhile, Israel proceeds to weaken further Abbas, their "peace partner" by building settlements before they have an agreement. They also show the US to be either liars or weak in the face of Israel.
It's no surprise the war is still on in Israel, they keep fanning the flames and inspiring a new generation of terrorists. Hamas and Hezbohlah are both the result of Israel's excesses.
BigNewsNetwork.com

On Sunday the Israeli cabinet approved a 750-home project in the Givat Ze'ev settlement, north of Jerusalem, five kilometers past the Green Line. "You can't freeze building in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, where there is a great need for housing," Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labour, Eli Yishai, said.


UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon clearly doesn't agree. “Any settlement expansion is contrary to Israel’s obligations under the Road Map and to international law,” Ban said through a statement released by his spokesperson on Monday. Addressing the parties in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Secretary-General re-emphasized the importance of fulfilling obligations under the Road Map, the peace framework drawn up by the Middle East diplomatic Quartet consisting of the UN, European Union, United States and Russian Federation.


Asked about international condemnation of the settlements expansion, Yishai, who is also the Shas Party leader, described the calls to stop as "illegitimate." "If we can't build, then we can't negotiate. If this activity brings an end to the talks, then that is just," he said.


Yishai told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday he expected the Defense Ministry to approve a number of projects in the haredi settlement cities of Modi'in Illit and Betar Illit, as well as in Ma'aleh Adumim, which has a mixed Orthodox and secular population. The three cities, all of which are located a short distance beyond the Green Line, are among the largest Jewish population centers in the West Bank. In addition, according to a Shas spokesman, a number of projects in the settlements of Ariel, Efrat, Sha'arei Tikvah and Elkana have been approved or are about to be approved. The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday obtained a list of some of these projects signed by Defense Ministry settlements adviser Eitan Broshi. A spokesman for Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he could not verify the list's authenticity but added that he did know that some projects had been authorized. A quick check with some of the settlement leaders showed, however, that they were unaware that they had received or were about to receive permission to build, The Jerusalem Post reported.


"Israel is sending a very bad message that shows its contempt for the negotiations." Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qorei told reporters after meeting with Tony Blair, the international Middle East envoy, in Ramallah.


The United States said news of settlements expansion was "unhelpful."

Abbas: Peace Deal Has Been Made, Except Missiles Still Fly

BigNewsNetwork.com

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he believes a truce deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas, thanks to mediation by Egypt. Abbas told reporters: "I believe an agreement has been reached in principle providing for the cessation of Israeli attacks and Hamas rockets." He said Hamas would stop firing rockets on Israel and in return Israel would halt attacks on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Abbas pointed out that the deal also provided for easing the siege on the Gaza Strip and the re-opening of crossing-points to the Palestinian territory. The Palestinian leader suggested that the deal would be declared within a few days.

Except...
Reuters

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel on Tuesday just hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited the area and cautioned residents not to expect a lull in Palestinian attacks to last. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the rocket strike, the first against Israel since Sunday, saying its "battle against occupation is continuing".

Swiftboating Obama

Look what's coming to a campaign ad near you.
AlterNet

In early January, when Barack Obama was just one among many Democratic candidates, we published Swiftboating Obama's Religion: He Is Not a Muslim. Now that he is the putative Democratic nominee, here is a look at another potentially Swiftboat-able part of his record — his tenuous connections to Michael Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn, who were members of the Weather Underground in the Vietnam War era — and his one-time professional relationship with Dr. Rashid Khalidi, a one-time PLO media director.

Hamas And Israel In Truce Mediation

Al Jazeera English

Israeli and Hamas officials are discussing a possible ceasefire through Egyptian mediators after Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, ordered a halt to raids on the Gaza Strip. Olmert gave the order on Monday in response to a significant drop in the number of rockets and mortars being fired from the territory, offficials said.


"We certainly appear to have entered a period of talking rather than fighting now," Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reported from Gaza. "For more than three days now there have been virtually no rocket attacks into Israel ... and also there have been no Israeli air strikes, no overflights of Gaza."


Both Israeli defence officials and Hamas leaders have insisted that no formal truce has been agreed so far, but officials in Olmert's office told the Associated Press that he had ordered the army to scale back its operations to allow talks to proceed. "What we are seeing is a period of shuttling backwards and forwards to Egypt by Hamas representatives, and on Sunday we know that in Egypt there was an Israeli official," Rowland reported. "But the Egyptians are being very careful that they are not even in the country at the same time."


Hossam Zaki, spokesman for the Egyptian foreign ministry, confirmed that Cairo had been in contact with representatives from both sides and there had been some progress. "There is an interest on both parties in a period of calm and the issue now is to discuss whether there will be guarantees ... that the military confrontations and operation will not occur again," he told Al Jazeera.


Hamas sources told Al Jazeera that the Palestinians are not only calling for an end to the military action, but also the reopening of the Rafah crossing and the lifting of the siege on Gaza.

Bush Administration Still Denying Justice for Sami Al-Arian

AlterNet

Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian, who has spent the past four years in jail despite a jury's failure to return a single guilty verdict against him, has been called before a third grand jury, despite the fact that Al-Arian signed a "no-cooperation" agreement with the government providing that he would not be required to appear before any grand jury. The announcement came on March 3rd, one month before his scheduled release.


Past National Lawyers Guild President Peter Erlinder, Al-Arian's counsel in 4th Circuit and 11th Circuit appeals, on the "acquitted conduct" Supreme Court cert petition said, "The duplicity of the Justice Department and the failure of the courts to recognize basic contract-law principles in this case is an example of how politically-motivated "war on terror" prosecutions are distorting the American legal system. In the Al-Arian case, the Justice Department and the courts have made a mockery of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial which should outrage all Americans as deeply as the Tampa jury that acquitted Dr. Al-Arian more than two years ago."


It is now likely that when Dr. Al-Arian again refuses to testify because of the "no-cooperation" agreement, he will be charged with obstruction of justice and could receive several additional years in prison. If he testifies, he faces a "perjury" trap based on Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg's past practice with other acquitted Palestinian defendants.


When he was arrested in February 2003, Dr. Sami Al-Arian was a prominent Palestinian academic and a leading member of the Muslim community in south Florida and one of the most prominent Palestinian academics and activists in the United States. He was acquitted on eight of 17 charges against him December 2005 after a six-month trial with three co-defendants. In April 2006 he pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy, involving assisting his brother-in-law in his immigration matters and denying to a reporter that he knew of a colleague's association with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In return, federal prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining eight charges on which the jury had "hung" 10-2 for acquittal and to recommend a time-served sentence with release and deportation in May 2006. The Tampa AUSA admitted, on the record, that the usual "cooperation clause" was removed from the plea agreement because Dr. Al-Arian and his lawyers would not agree to any form of cooperation.


At sentencing on May 1, 2007, Tampa Federal Judge James Moody gave him the constitutional maximum sentence of an additional year, citing the very offenses of which the jury had acquitted him. Despite the "no-cooperation" agreement, and while the appeal of his acquitted conduct sentence was pending on appeal, Al-Arian was found in civil contempt in January 2007. In December 2007, a federal judge in lifted the civil contempt and Al-Arian's new release date was April 2008.

KBR Legally Dodges Taxes

Conflict of interest means nothing to the Bush Administration. They have made corruption safe for government again.
Think Progress

No private contractor has financially profited from the Iraq war more than Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), which until last year was a subsidiary of Halliburton. The firm currently has more than 21,000 employees in Iraq, and between 2004 and 2006, received more than $16 billion in government contracts — far more than any other corporation.


Yet KBR hasn’t been passing on these enormous profits to American taxpayers or even its own employees, thanks to a plan that Vice President Cheney helped establish. Today, the Boston Globe reports that KBR has avoided paying more than $500 million “in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies” based in the Cayman Islands.

Why Isn't Iraq in the 2008 Election?

AlterNet: Noam Chomsky

The highly regarded British polling agency, Oxford Research Bureau, has just updated its estimate of deaths. Their new estimate a couple of days ago is 1.3 million. That's excluding two of the most violent provinces, Karbala and Anbar. On the side, it's kind of intriguing to observe the ferocity of the debate over the actual number of deaths. There's an assumption on the part of the hawks that if we only killed a couple hundred thousand people, it would be OK, so we shouldn't accept the higher estimates. You can go along with that if you like.


Uncontroversially, there are over two million displaced within Iraq. Thanks to the generosity of Jordan and Syria, the millions of refugees who have fled the wreckage of Iraq aren't totally wiped out. That includes most of the professional classes. But that welcome is fading, because Jordan and Syria receive no support from the perpetrators of the crimes in Washington and London, and therefore they cannot accept that huge burden for very long. It's going to leave those two-and-a-half million refugees who fled in even more desperate straits.


The sectarian warfare that was created by the invasion never -- nothing like that had ever existed before. That has devastated the country, as you know. Much of the country has been subjected to quite brutal ethnic cleansing and left in the hands of warlords and militias. That's the primary thrust of the current counterinsurgency strategy that's developed by the revered "Lord Petraeus," I guess we should describe him, considering the way he's treated. He won his fame by pacifying Mosul a couple of years ago. It's now the scene of some of the most extreme violence in the country.


One of the most dedicated and informed journalists who has been immersed in the ongoing tragedy, Nir Rosen, has just written an epitaph entitled "The Death of Iraq" in the very mainstream and quite important journal Current History. He writes that "Iraq has been killed, never to rise again. The American occupation has been more disastrous than that of the Mongols, who sacked Baghdad in the thirteenth century," which has been the perception of many Iraqis, as well. "Only fools talk of 'solutions' now," he went on. "There is no solution. The only hope is that perhaps the damage can be contained."


But Iraq is, in fact, the marginal issue, and the reasons are the traditional ones, the traditional reasoning and attitudes of the liberal doves who all pray now, as they did forty years ago, that the hawks will be right and that the US will win a victory in this land of wreck and ruin. And they're either encouraged or silenced by the good news about Iraq.

Haliburton Employee Raped in Baghdad: Without Legal Recourse?

THE NEW REPUBLIC

Remember the story of Jamie Leigh Jones, the 22-year-old former Halliburton worker in Iraq who was allegedly drugged, gang-raped, and locked in a storage shed until the State Department rescued her after her congressman intervened? Thanks to an order signed by Paul Bremer, employees of U.S. contractors in Iraq are beyond the reach of the Iraqi criminal justice system, leaving them effectively in a legal black hole, as Michael Walzer wrote in our last issue. They could technically be tried in U.S. federal court for offenses committed in Iraq, but logistically that would be very difficult and the Justice Department has shown no interest in prosecuting Jones's case, meaning her assailants almost certainly won't face any criminal penalties.


But, to make things worse, as Peggy Garrity points out in an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times, Jones also will likely be unable to pursue a lawsuit in civil court. For one thing, Halliburton claims it has mysteriously lost the doctor's report and photographs taken by a military doctor the day after the rape occurred, so it would hard for her to build a case in the first place. But even if she could, her employment contract stipulated that disputes would be resolved through a binding arbitration process, which lacks (among other things) a jury, rules of evidence, an appeals process, and--perhaps most importantly--media access and a transcript. Federal courts in Texas, Garrity notes, have recently proven fastidious about upholding binding arbitration clauses in all cases. Now, it's true that she signed the contract of her own volition--binding arbitration clauses are becoming increasingly common in all sorts of agreements, and in some instances genuinely are better suited than civil courts to resolving disputes. But when such clauses are used to preclude civil action even in cases like this one, it certainly seems as though they're being misused.

Israel Threatens Gaza with "Holocaust"

GlobalResearch.ca

On Friday, 29 February 2008, Israel's deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai threatened Palestinians in Gaza with a "holocaust," telling Israeli Army Radio: "The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, [the Palestinians] will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves."


This date will go down in history as the beginning of a new phase in the colonial conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, whereby a senior Israeli leader, a "leftist" for that matter, has publicly revealed the genocidal plans Israel is considering to implement against Palestinians under its military occupation, if they do not cease to resist its dictates. It will also mark the first time since World War II that any state has relentlessly -- and on live TV -- terrorized a civilian population with acts of slow, or low-intensity, genocide, with one of its senior government officials overtly inciting to a full-blown "holocaust," while the world stood by, watching in utter apathy, or in glee, as in the case of leading western leaders.


For an Israeli leader who is Jewish, in particular, to threaten anyone with holocaust is a sad irony of history.

Raped and Silenced in the Barracks

AlterNet: Investigative Report

When military sexual assault survivors call Susan Avila-Smith, she advises them to keep their mouths shut while she works on getting them home. “It breaks my heart to do that,” she says, “but I want to get them out alive and that’s my main goal.” Since she left the Army in 1995, Avila-Smith estimates that she has helped about 1,200 rape survivors separate from the U.S. Armed Forces and claim their Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits. As founder of Women Organizing Women, an online support group for survivors of military sexual trauma (MST), Avila-Smith has heard it all.


[..]The Lauterbach case, according to Avila-Smith and many others, exemplifies the “criminal failure” of all branches of the military to address sexual assault for what it is—a violent crime. It is a “broken system” that she says puts victims on the defense, grants immunity to assailants and, in the end, puts rape survivors who have the courage to speak out, in even greater danger than if they had just accepted the abuse as collateral damage in their military careers.


In 2003, a firestorm of media reports and investigations, prompted by an anonymous whistle-blower at the Air Force Academy, exposed the prevalence of sexual assault in the armed forces and its training centers. That same year, the results of a study conducted by Dr. Anne Sadler of the Iowa City VA Medical Center found 28 percent of female veterans having suffered MST while on active duty.


[..]A 2004 survey of U.S. service members conducted by the Pentagon’s Advisory Committee on Women in the Services found fear of repercussions to be the number one “perceived barrier” to reporting sexual abuse, noted by 81 percent of female respondents and 73 percent of male respondents. Confidentiality, career-related concerns and distrust of leadership were also cited by a majority of rape victims.


[..]Former CID agent Sgt. Myla Haider told In These Times that Thornton’s case is not rare. “If there was an adequate response to begin with, it might have made it to court and gotten prosecuted,” she says, “but [Thornton’s case] wasn’t anything unusual from what I’ve seen.”


Haider has investigated dozens of rape cases and says she almost always encountered a pervasive “attitude toward victims,” that guarantees the failure of the case. “The investigators themselves,” Haider explains, “when working on cases, tended to focus on reasons a victim could be lying.” She described seeing “tag team interviews,” in which “one agent after another is sent in there to ‘get the truth’ out of the victim.”


“On occasion, that results in the victims becoming very upset,” she added, describing one case in which a victim “went running out of the office and declined to cooperate any further.” Every MST survivor interviewed for this investigation told a similar story.


[..]“My CID wasn’t an investigator, he was an interrogator,” says Pvt. S. Clark, of North Carolina, who preferred her first name not be used. “The thing that I remember is him leaning over the desk, with his cigarette breath, screaming at me, ‘Why won’t you admit that it was rough, consensual sex between two drunken adults?’”


Clark’s attacker had beaten her so badly that, months later, she began having seizures, which her doctors attributed to “cranial tearing.” Still, she says, the CID agent “made me feel as if I had dishonored my army and my country by speaking out against another soldier.”


Sometimes this attitude, says Haider, leads to claims being recanted. “The law enforcement response makes it so that victims don’t want anything to do with the investigation anymore,” she says. Even if the victim continues to cooperate despite being re-victimized by law enforcement, the focus on her credibility happens at the expense of collecting relevant testimony, leaving the case little chance of surviving.


While physical evidence is collected according to protocol, Haider says this can seldom prove anything other than intercourse—useful for “stranger rapes,” but irrelevant for proving acquaintance rapes, which are the majority of cases.


“CID training does not focus on evidence collection for acquaintance rape situations,” Haider says. As a result, “CID agents tended not to take acquaintance rape seriously.”


CID spokesman Chris Grey says that since Haider left the command, it has begun “a very comprehensive Sexual Assault Sensitivity Training program. However, according to Haider, recent data call into question the effectiveness of that training. According to the Pentagon’s “2006 Annual Report on Military Services Sexual Assault,” 18 percent of the cases reported in 2004 were thrown out for being unfounded, unsubstantiated or “lacking sufficient evidence,” prior to reaching a court martial. In 2006, the first full year during which the training program had the opportunity to reap results, the proportion of cases thrown out on the same grounds more than doubled, to 37 percent.


Even when cases do result in commander action, that action is rarely ever a criminal justice response. In 2006, only 292 cases (out of 2,974 reported) resulted in a court martial. Meanwhile, 488 cases resulted in an “administrative punishment,” such as a letter of reprimand, a discharge from the military, forced resignation or a reduction in pay or rank. “The 2005 reforms have done nothing in terms of offender accountability,” Haider explains. “There are public service announcements and ad campaigns that say the military has zero tolerance for sexual assault, but the reality speaks a different truth.” She said she doesn’t believe there are many rapists in the military, but those that are sexual predators learn quickly that they can get away with it and will inevitably go on to attack again.


“They are sending women into combat zones, but not doing what it takes to protect them,” she says.


Protection, however, is not only a matter of deterring crime through punitive measures. It is also a matter of taking action to protect victims from their alleged assailants after a crime is reported. That responsibility rests in large part with commanders. Thornton was allegedly left to live in the same barracks as her assailant for a full six months after her assault, despite repeated requests for a transfer.


[..]Leaving survivors in the same place to fend for themselves also leaves them open to the scorn of their fellow soldiers. Many survivors call it the “second rape” -- the moment when they realize that not only their command but their platoon, as well, is going to desert them.


[..]According to ex-CID agent Haider, the chauvinist culture might explain quite a bit. “Rape is not taken seriously enough in the military because it is a crime that affects primarily women—and women are still not taken seriously in the military,” she says. “There is a lot more sympathy if the victim is a man because most agents are male and they can relate to the violation. They are horrified by that. But when it’s a woman, it’s the opposite. Their attitude is almost contemptuous.”

Biofuels Starve the World's Poor

What is amazing here is that mainstream media didn't bring up this point before an whole bio-fuel industry launched towards consuming 30% of US corn.
New York Times

The world’s food situation is bleak, and shortsighted policies in the United States and other wealthy countries — which are diverting crops to environmentally dubious biofuels — bear much of the blame.


According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the price of wheat is more than 80 percent higher than a year ago, and corn prices are up by a quarter. Global cereal stocks have fallen to their lowest level since 1982.


As usual, the brunt is falling disproportionately on the poor. The F.A.O. estimates that the cereal import bill of the neediest countries will increase by a third for the second year in a row. Prices have gone so high that the World Food Program, which aims to feed 73 million people this year, said it might have to reduce rations or the number of people it will help.


The world has faced periodic bouts when it looked as if population growth would outstrip the food supply. Each time, food production has grown to meet demand. This time it might not be so easy.


Population growth and economic progress are part of the problem. Consumption of meat and other high-quality foods —mainly in China and India— has boosted demand for grain for animal feed. Poor harvests due to bad weather in this country and elsewhere have contributed. High energy prices are adding to the pressures.


Yet the most important reason for the price shock is the rich world’s subsidized appetite for biofuels. In the United States, 14 percent of the corn crop was used to produce ethanol in 2006 — a share expected to reach 30 percent by 2010. This is also cutting into production of staples like soybeans, as farmers take advantage of generous subsidies and switch crops to corn for fuel.

Israeli Military Invades Gaza

BigNewsNetwork.com

In a major all-out offensive, the Israeli army has swept into the Gaza Strip with tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and thousands of troops, while Israeli warplanes have stepped up bombings from the air.


Haaretz newspaper says the death toll at the end of the day for Palestinians was 56, including five children, a 17-year-old girl and her 16-year-old brother, a 45-year-old man and his 20-year-old son, and two sisters, thought to be in their early 20s, who were blasted by Israeli tanks. Two Israeli soldiers also died. They were both 20-years-old.

Palestinians say peace talks are over

Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat has said peace talks with Israel have been "buried under the houses that were destroyed" in the heavy Israeli military strikes on the Gaza Strip.


Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sharply condemned the Israeli attacks, which have killed 88 Palestinians since a 47-year-old Israeli university student was killed in Sderot on Wednesday, and has called for emergency meetings of the United Nations Security Council and the Arab League.


He also blamed Hamas, which holds power in the Gaza Strip, for providing Israel with an excuse to carry out the attacks.

UN raises alarm over plight of children in Gaza

Faced with devastating humanitarian conditions from the crippling Israeli blockade, Palestinian children are now being shocked and awed by raging aerial bombings, and ground offensives by the Israeli army.


The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Saturday voiced its deep concern at the escalating conflict in the Gaza Strip. It has warned both Israel and the Palestinians to “take all feasible measures” to ensure the protection and care of children caught up in the violence.


Since the current upsurge in fighting began on Wednesday, at least seventeen children from Gaza have been killed and more than 200 others injured, UNICEF said in a statement, quoting figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry.