| |
 |
Thursday, February 16, 2006 |
Guardian: "A succession of scandals in the US has revealed widespread government funding of PR agencies to produce 'fake news'. Actors take the place of journalists and the 'news' is broadcast as if it were genuine. The same practice has been adopted in Iraq, where newspapers have been paid to insert copy. These stories have raised the usual eyebrows in the UK about the pitiful quality of US democracy. Things are better here, we imply. We have a prime minister who claimed in 2004 that 'the values that drive our actions abroad are the same values of progress and justice that drive us at home'. Yet in 2002 the government launched a littleknown television propaganda service that seems to mimic the US government's deceptive approach to fake news.
The British Satellite News website says it is 'a free television news and features service'. It looks like an ordinary news website, though its lack of copyright protection might raise some questions in alert journalists.
BSN is provided by World Television, a company that also makes corporate videos and fake news clips for corporations such as GlaxoSmithKline, BP and Nestlé. It also produced Towards Freedom Television on behalf of the UK government. This was a propaganda programme broadcast in Iraq by US army psychological-operations teams from a specially adapted aircraft in 2003/04.
World Television produces the fake news, but its efforts are entirely funded by the Foreign Office, which spent £340m on propaganda activities in the UK alone in 2001."
Guardian: "The Bush administration made an emergency request to Congress yesterday for a seven-fold increase in funding to mount the biggest ever propaganda campaign against the Tehran government, in a further sign of the worsening crisis between Iran and the west."
Stop the war on Iran before it starts.
12:10:49 PM 
|
|
NRC: There is evidence that CIA rendition planes landed in the Netherlands, some of these planes have also been spotted at Guantanamo Bay, in Afghanistan and Iraq and at Camp Peary, a CIA training camp in the US. These flights were not regular and they were not checked.
It is impossible these planes landed without the consent of the Dutch government and knowledge by the AIVD, the Dutch secret service.
All governments collaborating in this rendition scheme are aiding and abetting war criminals and torturers like George W. Bush and Tony Blair.
The latest Abu Ghraib pictures show that the US was and probably still is involved in torture. Also police death squads are operating in Iraq.
CraigMurray: "In response to newly released images of abuse at Abu Ghraib, the American Civil Liberties Union today renewed its call for an independent investigation into widespread and systemic abuse in U.S. detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay."
The UN report on the situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay:
"The United States Government should close the Guantánamo Bay detention
facilities without further delay. Until the closure, and possible transfer of detainees to
pre-trial detention facilities on United States territory, the Government should refrain
from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, discrimination on the basis of religion, and violations of the rights to
health and freedom of religion. In particular, all special interrogation techniques
authorized by the Department of Defense should immediately be revoked.
The United States Government should refrain from expelling, returning,
extraditing or rendering Guantánamo Bay detainees to States where there are
substantial grounds for believing they would be in danger of being tortured."
The Dutch government, and other European countries, should immediately stop their collaboration with the US 'rendition' scheme.
11:59:20 AM
|
|
Ann Coulter, the lightweight political pornographer - faking it lying down in her fantasy world, America's hard-core conservative pundit, is a tad confused as far as voting is concerned: she voted in the wrong precinct.
We know that a lot of people were prevented from voting just because they went to the wrong district.
PalmBeachPost: "Florida statutes make it a third-degree felony to vote knowingly in the wrong precinct. Lying on a voter's registration can cost up to $5,000 and five years behind bars.
'You do not have to show proof that you live at your address. But when you sign the registration application, you also take an oath that everything you wrote is the truth.
'If someone brings us proof that a person falsified a registration, we'll check into it, then refer the matter to the state attorney's office if necessary,' says Elections Chief Deputy Charmaine Kelly."
So, Ms Coulter has committed a felony. It figures, she had four years of law school and is an extremist neocon.
11:36:54 AM
|
|
UPI: "A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights."
The American Bar Association has severely rebuked the president in a letter with their report on domestic surveillance. They asked him "to abide by the limitations which the Constitution imposes on a president under our system of checks and balances and respect the essential roles of the Congress and the judicial branch in ensuring that our national security is protected in a manner consistent with constitutional guarantees.
We must continually and vigilantly protect our Constitution and defend the rule of law."
The ABA also asked the Congress to investigate the matter further.
Congressional record Febr 15: "This President, in my judgment, may have broken the law and most certainly has violated the spirit of the Constitution and the public trust," Sen. Byrd said.
10:52:48 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2008.
|
|
|
|
|
