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China's Documentation of US Human Rights Abuses
by Stephen Lendman
On March 11, the US State Department issued its "2009 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)," calling the People's Republic of China (PRC) "an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constitutionally is the paramount source of power," practicing:
-- "cultural and religious repression;"
-- harassment of human rights activists;
-- harassment and disbarment of lawyers who defend them;
-- control of free expression, the Internet, and access to it;
-- extrajudicial killings;
-- torture and coerced confessions of prisoners;
-- use of forced labor, including prison labor;
Pro-GMO chemical polluter becomes Obama's ag trade negotiator
By Rady Ananda
Islam Siddiqui
Despite declining bee and butterfly populations from agricultural chemicals, on Saturday the US Senate approved President Barack Obama's nomination for chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Monsanto lobbyist Islam Siddiqui.
“Dr. Siddiqui’s confirmation is a step backward,” said Tierra Curry, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (the "Center"). “His appointment ensures the perpetuation of pesticide- and fossil-fuel-intensive policies, which undermine global food security and imperil public health and wildlife.”
As undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Siddiqui oversaw the development of the first national organic labeling standards, which allowed sewage sludge-fertilized, genetically modified, and irradiated food to be labeled as organic, reports the Center. After a nationwide campaign spearheaded by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) in which the USDA was deluged with 280,000 irate letters and emails, Siddiqui, Monsanto, and the USDA backed off.
Targeting Academic and Speech Freedoms: The Case of Canadian Professor Denis Rancourt
by Stephen Lendman
Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a constitutional bill of rights, states:
"Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association."
Article 7 assures "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person and the right not to be deprived thereof in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."
How Christian is the pope, really?
Mary Shaw
The independent and foreign press have written much in the past about the current pope's ongoing cover-ups of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Now the American mainstream media are finally catching on. But it's long overdue. So here is a history:
Back in 2001, when we still knew him as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the British press leaked a confidential letter from Ratzinger to all Catholic bishops ordering that "the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret," and asserting "the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood." In other words, keep it all under wraps until the statutes of limitations expire. Clearly he was not on the side of the victims. How Christian is that, really?
Defacto state
Jim Miles
Part of the dilemma in Palestine is that the more the “peace” process is delayed, moving nowhere, the more Israel gains in the way of confiscated and settled land. There are two basic solutions: either a one state solution (whether bi-national or otherwise); or a two state solution with Palestine existing on some remnant of land left over from Israeli settlement. A recent combination of events/ideas has left me wondering if the one state solution is perhaps the only remaining solution if not the de facto situation now.
Iran has the right to possess nuclear weapons
By Khalid Amayreh
One of the most scandalous manifestations of the present international order is the so-called “nuclear hypocrisy.” The United States, the only country to have committed a nuclear holocaust, is insisting that Iran has no right to possess a nuclear capability.
This nearly pornographic hypocrisy which the U.S. displays vis-à-vis the issue of nuclear proliferation is provocative and indefensible.
The US thinks it is fine to have Israel possess several hundred nuclear bombs and warheads, along with their American-supplied or Israeli-manufactured delivery systems. However, the same America vehemently rejects the very suggestion that Iran, or any other Middle Eastern country, should possess a nuclear capability.
Bogus Washington-Proposed Financial Reform
by Stephen Lendman
In Washington, the more things change, the more they stay the same, or usually get worse. It's true each election cycle, and when Congress enacts "reform," watch out.
Exhibit A:
Obamacare: legislation that rations care and enriches corporate providers.
Exhibit B:
Financial reform, shaping up to be more business as usual, masquerading as change, and leaving what's needed unaddressed and papered over.
When 'We the People' Lost America
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
We have forgotten what it was like in this country during the Reagan administration. A great reminder may be found in the words of E.L. Doctorow, writing in 1989, who summed up the legacy left to Bill Clinton by the conservative administration of Ronald Reagan/Bush:
"The philosophical conservative is someone willing to pay the price of other people's suffering for his principles. And so we now have hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of our citizens lying around the streets of our cities, sleeping in doorways, begging with Styrofoam cups. We didn't have a class of permanent beggars in this country, the the United States of America, fifteen or twenty years ago. We didn't have kids selling crack in their grade schools, or businessmen magnifying their fortunes into mega-fortunes by stock manipulation and thievery. I don't remember such epidemics of major corporate fraud.
THE PRINCE OF PEACE IN HIS BOMBER JACKET
Allen L Roland
The prince of peace, Barack Obama poses in occupied Afghanistan for his obligatory warrior photo ~ dressed in his bomber jacket which fully reveals the hypocrisy of his recent and deeply tainted Nobel Peace prize.
As Holy Week unfolds in 2010 ~ we have the twin spectacles of the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI, deservedly under attack for obstruction of justice while the Prince of Peace, Nobel Peace prize winner President Barack Obama, visiting illegally occupied Afghanistan in the dead of night for an on the run Photo Op with the troops ~ while posing in his macho bomber jacket. In essence, it was a six hour pro-war pep rally!
All we need is a Mission Accomplished Banner behind Obama to replicate the hypocrisy of the GW Bush Photo Op on May 1, 2003 on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln where Bush declared that the Iraq war, which was also an illegal occupation and still continues today, was over.
The Arab summit and the future of the Middle East
Salim Nazzal
The vast majority of the Arab editorials which covered the Arab 22th summit held in Sirt, Libya stressed the wide distance between the Arab leaders and the Arab masses. This view is well expressed by Muamar Al Qaddafi of Libya who stated said that the Arab masses no longer trust their leaders.
Furthermore, as the Summit ended on Sunday, the Arab leaders did not bring positive options for the best interest of the Arab people, according to most Arab political analysts except to repeat the same rhetoric. This fact is also expressed by the Arab TV Al Jazeera, which broadcasted some speeches from past summits to show that the same rhetoric is being used at each summit. Al Jazeera also interviewed ordinary young men and woman from Palestine, Egypt and Syria and most interviewed expect very little from the Arab summit.
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