7/23/06: Third World News Report

http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006/07/72306-third-world-news-report.html

Comment: Despite the nationalist-centric self-identity of the United States as being the center of all the known universe-cosmos, in fact, the majority of the world’s people’s are in the Third World of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Even the term ‘America’ is not exclusive to only the United States, but can include all of North America, Central and South America. I use the term ‘Amerika’ when I refer to the United States to remind us of the rampant KKK-racist mentality, whether conscious or subconscious, among many Amerikan citizens.

U.S. news organs of the corporate controlled mainstream media dominate the coverage of the world news. The Mideast Crisis in Lebanon has dominated the news this last week with comments on World War III, wars and rumors of war. The truth is this whole world is always at war and in a constant state of crisis.

We must do what we can to raise consciousness among those around us, promote community education, increase literacy rates and arm ourselves with the truth for the even more troubled times to come.

The below are a few news articles that came to my attention this week and is by no means inclusive. Just a quick overview of some global headlnes. Take heed!

World Population: 6,530,134,457
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/world.html

Africa: 877,500,000
Asia: 3,879,000,000 (2005 est)
Latin America: 379,500,000
Mexico: 106,202,900
Central America: 41,135,300
http://worldatlas.com/aatlas/world.htm

Join the THIRD-WORLD-EARTH-NEWS Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/THIRD-WORLD-EARTH-NEWS/

Venceremos Unidos! United We Will Win!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka Peta
Sacramento, California, Divided States
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-sa/2006/jul/23/072306634.html

Morales Rekindles Revolutionary Spirit: July 23, 2006 at 9:25:50 PDT
By FIONA SMITH / ASSOCIATED PRESS

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - Summoning President Evo Morales at dawn to the great hall of the presidential palace, two poncho-clad Indian shamans pour alcohol on coca leaves, candies and a dried llama fetus, and set them on fire. Eyes closed, Morales meditates as the offerings burn and asks Pachamama, the earth goddess of his ancestors, to aid Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera on his mission to Washington, where he's been trying to persuade the U.S. Congress this week to prolong a preferential trade pact. Such rituals are nothing unusual for Morales, Bolivia's highly unorthodox president, who marks six months in office this weekend.

Morales never wears a tie and rarely gives prepared speeches. Rather than sitting down to sumptuous banquets with the well-heeled, prefers hosting traditional lunches where peasants eat communally, with their hands, on the marble floor of the palace's great hall. A stoutly built Aymara Indian who was raised in severe poverty and rose to power as a scrappy agitator for Bolivia's coca growers, Morales is unusually approachable for his constituents, but avoids the lifestyle of the European-descended elites who long ruled South America's poorest country.

The populist upheaval he's leading on behalf of Bolivia's long-marginalized indigenous majority has Morales riding at 80 percent popularity. But critics say his folksy, informal style doesn't necessarily make for effective government.

The president's detractors accuse Morales of devoting too much energy to accusing political rivals of misdeeds, without presenting proof. And they claim his attempts to exert greater state control over the economy will hurt growth. Morales' anti-corruption, anti-poverty crusade represent a continuation of the 1952 revolution that nationalized Bolivia's mines and granted the Indians such civil rights as voting and access to government buildings, says veteran political scientist Carlos Toranzo.

The sights and smells of transition are clear in Bolivia's highland capital of La Paz. On the last day of caretaker President Eduardo Rodriguez's government in January, Toranzo attended a palace reception where "everyone had the same suits as always, the same ties, same perfumes, Giorgio Armani as always. The next day I went to a reception that Evo Morales gave. They served whiskey, chicha, beer and Bolivian food. The people were different, the colors different, the smells different."

"I saw the '52 revolution and now I see this," said Toranzo. "This is a revolution."

Morales' election brought an end to three years of violent street protests led by the poor that forced out two presidents. Since then he's allied himself with Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba, chilling relations with Washington.

His cabinet is a potpourri of social activists, many of them new to governing, such as the former house maid he named as justice minister. Governing often by decree to bypass strong opposition in Congress, Morales has nationalized the natural gas industry and ordered land handouts for peasants. He has also slashed government salaries, cutting his own by more than 50 percent, to fund more teachers and health care workers, and secured an increase in the price Argentina pays for natural gas.

"He's still a rising star without a doubt because of the political impact of his election with an absolute majority," said Henry Oporto, an analyst with Fundacion Milenio, a think tank close to Bolivia's traditional political establishment. "But in time, the population is going to start demanding concrete results and this probably won't be a happy moment for Evo Morales because maybe he won't have many results to show."

If that's the case, it won't be for a lack of effort.

Morales follows a brutal schedule, working up to 20 hours every day. Secretaries work in shifts to keep up with him. Cabinet meetings are often held at 5 a.m., and it's not unusual for Morales to make major policy announcements at late-night ceremonies. He travels almost daily to the corners of Bolivia, giving speeches without notes and changing his schedule on the fly. The 46-year-old bachelor even invited female reporters to a singles' night out after one speech. And when he does take the occasional break, he plays raquetball or soccer, playing with his ministers against the palace guards or other teams.

"I admire him very much and I have to confess we can't keep up with the president's rhythm - two weeks we're at his side and afterward we need a rest for at least a week and then we start back over," said Santos Ramirez, the Senate president.

Given Morales' close alliances with Chavez and Castro and penchant for executive orders, some Bolivians think he could easily evolve into an autocrat. A big test will be how Morales handles a national assembly that convenes Aug. 6 to rewrite Bolivia's constitution and in which his allies hold a majority.

"I think he takes the attitude that democracy is politically convenient," said Oporto. "He's a democrat while democracy helps him and in the moment it doesn't he probably won't believe in it anymore."

Others say Morales has proven to be anything but an authoritarian or an anti-globalization radical. He's tried to preserve the Andean trade community after Chavez pulled Venezuela out, appealed to Washington to preserve their bilateral trade deal, and reached out to Chile after years without diplomatic relations. Morales also reined in his education minister Felix Patzi, who had demanded last month that Roman Catholic religious instruction be banned from the nation's schools.

"Radical rhetoric with moderate decisions. This combination ... explains why he has such acceptance today in Bolivia," said Fernando Mayorga, a political scientist at San Simon University in Cochabamba. "His decisions haven't produced fear, in the sense that Evo Morales' opposition were saying six months ago that he would bring catastrophe."

Associated Press Writer Frank Bajak contributed to this report.

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http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=5185393&nav=HMO6HMaW

Washington lawmakers take night tour of US/Mexico border
July 23, 2006 05:58 AM PDT

The Arizona desert is the most traveled area for illegal immigrants crossing over into the United States. On Friday, a group of Washington lawmakers, including Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, traveled right into the center of it all. The delegation wanted to get a sense of how much is needed to get a hold on illegal immigration. After touring Yuma during the day, the group headed to Nogales. While there, Hastert and the others got a first-hand look at the border after dark and News 4 went along for the rare night tour.

"We are now parallel to the border and coming up to it at a 45 degrees," Border Patrol Agent Gus Soto explains our whereabouts as we get into the car. It was a dark, bumpy trip to the border. In fact, the roads were so rugged that our photographer had a hard time keeping the camera steady. "There are agents on this road, 24/7," said Soto.

Most recently, National Guard soldiers joined Border Patrol agents. News 4 reached a spot about a mile away from Nogales, but far enough away from any city lights. Turning on our lights revealed a Hummer and National Guard Soldiers watching and waiting. Agents took House Speaker Hastert and the others to a site where Border Patrol agents put up vehicle barriers about a month ago. In the darkness, Hastert scanned the border using night-vision goggles.

"It's always good to get back and get really a dose of what is reality," he said. "One of the things I think is important is our National Guard working with our Border Patrol. They make a great team."

A team that seems to be working. "From what we've been hearing from the Border Patrol, the traffic has decreased greatly since we've been in position out here," said Corporal Rick Sommers, a U.S. Army National Guard soldier with the 54th Brigade "Task Force Stone Wall" out of Virginia. In fact, according to the Border Patrol, in the short time that the National Guard soldiers have been on the border, there's been a 60% decrease in people crossing the border.

"We've added additional infrastructure, more agents and better technology. Literally, where we were ten years ago or even five years ago to where we are now, is night and day," said Soto.

There are more than 400 Army National Guard soldiers from just that one Brigade from Virginia along the U.S., Mexico border. By August 1, a total of 6,000 National Guard Soldiers are scheduled to be in place along all four states bordering Mexico.

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http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=132187&lang=eng_news&cate_img=49.jpg&cate_rss=news_Society

Indonesia tsunami death toll nears: 2006-07-23 12:56 AM
Warning of waves on the way was not passed to authorities / Associated Press

Military personnel ride on a front end loader during a search and rescue operation in Pangandaran, Indonesia yesterday. / Reuters

The death toll from the Indonesian tsunami rose to 668 as reports of fatalities came in from remote villages along Java's battered southern coast, the government said yesterday. Another 287 people are missing and 74,100 have been displaced.Drajat Santosa, a National Disaster Management Coordinating Board official, said around a hundred bodies have been found over the last 72 hours in parts of Ciamis district. Among the dead are five foreigners and a French national is missing, he said.

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake triggered Monday's tsunami, which pummeled a 300 kilometer stretch of coastline, destroying houses, restaurants and hotels. The two-meter-high waves tossed boats, cars and motorbikes hundreds of meters inland. The death toll has climbed steadily in recent days, with police and army teams hunting for bodies in the ruins, while others took their search to the sea.

Bloated corpses: Some of the bloated corpses found in recent days were beneath a mangled steel bridge in Ciamis, just east of hardest-hit Pangandaran resort, he said. Others were scattered in villages on the other side, and a few more were found on the tiny nearby island of Ayah. In Pangandaran, survivors and army troops lit massive bonfires yesterday to clear debris from the beach.

Among those helping was Salikin, 30, who normally sells groceries from a street cart. His home was relatively untouched, but he and his family have been sleeping in a hillside shelter and with relatives inland because they were too afraid to return to the seashore. "We will save what we can save, and clean out the rest," Salikin said as he and other volunteers set aside clay roof tiles, bamboo shoots and wood beams that could be used to rebuild homes or businesses.

The government started setting up an early warning system after the 2004 tsunami that killed at least 216,000 people across the Indian Ocean rim, more than half of them on Indonesia's Sumatra island. But it is still in the initial stages. Only two monitoring buoys have been installed, and a government minister acknowledged Friday that they had broken from their moorings and were now being repaired on land, underscoring the problems in maintaining the high-tech system.
Even if they had been operational, the buoys off Sumatra's coast do not cover Java island.

Failure to report: The government has come under fire, however, for failing to tell coastal authorities about bulletins from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and Japan's Meteorological Agency saying killer waves could be on the way. Officials have given different explanations for the decision.

Sergeant Sudarman, a veteran detective with the marine police in Pangandaran, said scores of lives could have been saved with even a few minutes' notice. "We would not have been able to warn everybody, but we could have told those nearby and at least reduced the number of casualties," he said, adding that officers learned of the tsunami threat after receiving a phone call from reporters. By then it was way too late, he explained. The water was already receding - a sign of an imminent tsunami - and they were able to save only themselves.

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http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20060723x1.html

KYRGYZSTAN: LAND AT A CROSSROADS: Sunday, July 23, 2006
Democracy falters as underworld forces flourish
By JEFF KINGSTON + Special to The Japan Times

Kyrgyzstan is referred to as a faltering state, meaning that it is not quite failing.

Demonstrations this year in Bishkek (above, left) and Osh (above, center) reflect continuing discontent even after the Tulip Revolution that toppled the Kyrgyzstan government in 2005.
JEFF KINGSTON PHOTOS

The International Crisis Group describes a government there that "lurches from crisis to crisis in the face of worsening political violence, prison revolts, serious property disputes and popular disillusion." The ICG warns that allowing democracy to fail in Kyrgyzstan could reinforce perceptions among regional governments that "the path to stability lies not in democracy but in dictatorship."

Compared to other Central Asian states, Kyrgyzstan is considered a bastion of freedom. Wags would say that sets the bar rather low. This mostly mountainous, landlocked nation with stunning alpine vistas and lakes is more than double the size of Hungary. It shares borders with China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Its water is a significant resource in this parched zone, but it does not have the hydrocarbon riches of its neighbors.

However, anti-government political rallies are tolerated in Kyrgystan, critical news commentary is published, pornography is openly sold, gambling flourishes, Internet cafes are unrestricted, couples walk about hand in hand and virtually anything goes. That also means drugs, prostitution, street crime, contract killings and random "taxation" by police. In this rough-and-tumble world, the country's parliamentarians passed a law allowing them to carry guns to defend themselves.

People power: In 2005 the government was overthrown in the so-called Tulip Revolution, a demonstration of people power sweeping a corrupt regime out of office and into exile. In its wake, the new regime under President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has disappointed the people. Unemployment, underemployment and corruption remain endemic and are major grievances. And, as Prime Minister Feliks Kulov stated, "the biggest problem is that law-enforcement agencies have become intertwined with the criminals, and honest law-enforcement structures are afraid to fight crime."

Democracy has provided an opening for organized crime to consolidate its influence within the government. In October 2005, the parliamentary chairman of the Committee on Defense, Security and Law Enforcement was murdered while in a prison on an inspection tour -- apparently by the Chechen mafia. More recently, his brother, Ryspek Akmatbayev, one of the more notorious Kyrgyz crime bosses, was killed as he left a mosque. He lived dangerously by challenging the entrenched Chechen mafia, and had also become a political liability for the government.

By chance I had an opportunity to watch Kyrgyzstan's distinctive democracy in practice as one of the parliamentary seats outside Osh was being contested. I arrived the day after the polls closed and tallying had begun.

Walking into one of the candidate's compounds, I was struck by the hefty women wearing velvet, and with dazzling smiles featuring lots of gold teeth. Even more unmissable were the large number of beefy guys -- slabs of muscle with anvil-size hands -- and a preference, among older men, for cone-shaped white felt hats sweeping rakishly back from suntanned brows. The brutes are often 100-kg Greco-Roman wrestlers known as "sportsmen," but to your average Kyrgyz, and me, they looked like very intimidating thugs. These men, nearly 600 of them, had been active "canvassing" the vote. This entailed them making their way as hired muscle from the sports halls to the streets, clubs, bazaars and now polling stations.

The belly laugh moment came during my interview with the diminutive candidate, an ex-judo champion, when he accused his opponent of voting fraud. Sanshar Kadyralev, 29, was calling for the electoral commission to not certify results from four polling stations, thereby ensuring his victory by a slim margin.

His opponent, who did not have a brigade of thugs and fled to the safety of the capital after the polling, was leveling similar counter-charges. Later, at the election commission office, some of Sanshar's men were contesting the results. The election commissioner, a small middle-aged woman, was visibly frightened. How could she resist -- and why would she put her family at risk over such a trifle as a parliamentary seat?

Wizened gents at an election rally on the outskirts of Osh for crime-boss political candidate Sanshar Kadyralev. The traditional white felt hats especially favored by older men are worn year-round, for their warmth in the brutal winters and as protection from the blistering sun in summer.

Knowing that Sanshar was a local crime boss controlling the Karasuu market, the largest in Kyrgyzstan, and various gambling and strip clubs, it was hard to credit his pained expressions of indignation. He was cagey about his backers and political network, but did finally admit that he was in contact with the nation's leading crime boss, Ryspek Akmatbayev (since slain).

Fled to safety: Perhaps such occupational hazards explain why Sanshar was fidgety and nervous during the interview and why security was so tight. Young politicians like him with close ties to organized crime are dubbed the "karate kids," on account of their making it more on their command of brawn than policies. They rise quickly, but tend to have short-lived careers. Such is the price of encroaching on the turf of the underworld's Chechen "aristocracy."

The big money is in moving drugs and laundering drug money in the many casinos blinking garishly through the night. Given the amount of opium pouring out of Afghanistan these days, this is serious money. Osh, a small dowdy town with no obvious sources of wealth, is reputedly a major drug-trafficking point. This helps explain the disproportionate number of late-model expensive sedans. And, by all accounts, a major heroin-addiction problem.

Driving through the stunning scenery of soaring mountains, snowfields and shimmering lakes, it is easy to understand why Kyrgyzstan is known as the "Switzerland of Central Asia." But, according to my driver, appearances here are deceiving.

Ramil, 25, married with an infant son, is a locally born ethnic Russian who is unhappy with the state of affairs. For him, "faltering" means the government is failing to provide good jobs. He has a civil engineering degree, but if he managed to get a white-collar job he would earn less than $ 200 a month, compared with $ 50 for an uneducated day laborer. Instead he is a car trader, going to Latvia three times a year to bring back cars to resell in Bishkek at a 300-percent markup. Combined with the odd driving job, he can earn $ 800-$ 1,000 a month. He says the dream of many bright people in Kyrgyzstan is to migrate to Russia to study for graduate degrees and pursue professional careers that are unavailable at home. He guesses that real unemployment is close to 70 percent for university graduates.

Some of the hundreds of "sportsmen" (above) working to get the vote out for "karate kid" parliamentary candidate Sanshar Kadyralev.

Kyrgyzstan's future is bleak in Ramil's opinion due to deep ethnic and regional rifts, the pervasive influence of organized crime, corruption, drugs, prostitution and unstable families -- he estimates the divorce rate is over 40 percent. He agrees with an older ethnic Russian we met who told me that since independence in 1991, nothing has changed for the better -- Kyrgyzstan has been in continual decline.

Rumors of a coup: At the end of April, Bishkek was abuzz with rumors of a coup and a big anti-government rally. The press corps gathered in a chic rooftop bar decked out as a caravanserai, where they swapped rumors and speculated about the impending political tumult. In the end, none of them correctly predicted what would happen.

Demonstrators gathered to march to the main square in a leafy city where Lenin's statue still stands and the architecture is monumental Stalinesque. The rain was splashing down and it seemed the government's prayers for a small rally were answered. But as the crowds built up and the rain lifted, some 8,000 marchers descended on the main square just as they had done a year before when ousting the former president.

Apart from a few tooting kazoos, the marchers were subdued and orderly, holding aloft great blue flags emblazoned with tulips, and placards festooned with slogans. They were greeted by phalanxes of policewomen lining the boulevards and holding red carnations; brilliant theater and a savvy touch. The balaklava-clad commandos were off on the side roads.

As anti-government speakers addressed the rally, from the rear of the square several hundred riot policemen appeared banging their shields with their truncheons and opening up a corridor so the president and prime minister could step smartly onto the stage and hijack the rally.

Oratorical flourish: President Bakiyev was roundly booed as he told the crowd, "We are listening." But he had stolen the moment and the rally. It was an unexpected and flamboyant gesture. In a country where getting guns is as easy as buying gum, for an unpopular leader to defiantly stand in front of a hostile crowd was gutsy. His oratorical flourish -- "I am ready to die if it is my fate" -- was over the top but still a stellar performance. He bought himself time.

Policewomen with red carnations greet and confound demonstrators in Bishkek in April.

The rally may not have led to a dramatic toppling of government, but it is a healthy sign. Such an anti-government demonstration would not have been permitted in any of the other Central Asian nations. For a country of 5 million, and given the nasty weather, it was a decent turnout, indicating that apathy and cynicism have not yet prevailed.

But the way the government managed the situation was impressive, especially its leaders' calculated gamble. As one seasoned observer told me, though, the only reason the government stays in power is because they work well with those who have real power.

Later that evening, watching "La Traviata" at the grand opera house of Bishkek (there are nine of these opulent, Soviet-era relics scattered across Central Asia), the themes of betrayal and shattered dreams seemed all too apropos.

Jeff Kingston is Director of Asian Studies at Temple University, Japan Campus, in Tokyo.

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http://china.org.cn/english/2006/Jul/175536.htm

Death Toll from Storm Bilis Rises to 530: Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2006

The death toll from tropical storm Bilis and the ensuing natural disasters has risen to 530 across China as seven more fatalities were confirmed in southern Guangdong Province Saturday evening. Floods and landslides have claimed 106 lives in the province and 77 others are still missing, according to the provincial flood control headquarters.

More than 7.41 million residents of 674 townships in 68 counties have been affected by rainstorms, floods and landslides triggered by Bilis, with economic losses standing at 13.5 billion yuan (nearly US$1.7 billion) in the coastal province.

The Guangdong provincial financial bureau has provided 67 million yuan (nearly US$8.4 million) for disaster relief operation and the agricultural bureau has distributed 220,000 kilograms of rice seeds for disaster-ravaged areas.

A series of natural disasters triggered by Bilis has killed 35 people in the neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, leaving four others missing and forcing the evacuation of 499,000 residents, said the regional disaster relief office on Saturday. Local authorities in the central province of Hunan raised the region's death toll from 92 to 346 on Friday, saying 89 others remained missing. Floods and landslides also killed 43 in Fujian Province. Bilis landed on China's southeastern coast on July 14 and then churned inland, triggering deadly floods and landslides.

The breakdown of communication and traffic systems has made it very hard for the local civil affairs department to collect information on the number of deaths and the amount of damage caused, local officials said. The Ministry of Civil Affairs issued an announcement on Friday, warning local officials not to cover up death tolls from the disaster.

By Friday, 26.45 million people have been affected by the storm in Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi, according to the ministry. The central government has earmarked hundreds of millions of yuan for rescue and disaster relief in flood-ravaged areas.

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http://ramikhouri.com/

A New Middle East, or Rice's Fantasy Ride? :Released: 23 Jul 2006
by Rami G. Khouri
Email: rights@agenceglobal.com , 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

BEIRUT -- American officials are very good at vernacular descriptions, but lousy at history and political reality in the Middle East. As U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sets off Sunday on her short trip to a Middle East that is increasingly engulfed in violent confrontations and political turmoil, she has described the massive destruction, dislocation and human suffering in Lebanon as an inevitable part of the "birth pangs of a new Middle East".

From my perspective here in Beirut, watching American-supplied Israeli jets smash this country to smithereens, what she describes as “birth pangs” look much more like a wicked hangover from a decades-old American orgy of diplomatic intoxication with the enticements of pro-Israeli politics.

We shall find out in the coming years if indeed a new Middle East is being born, or -- as I suspect -- we are witnessing the initial dying gasps of the Western-made political order that has defined this region and focused primarily on Israeli national dictates for most of the past half a century. The way to a truly new and stable Middle East is to apply policies that deliver equal rights to all concerned, not to favor Israel as having greater rights than Arabs.

Rice declared that Israel should ignore calls for a ceasefire, saying: "This is a different Middle East. It's a new Middle East. It's hard. We're going through a very violent time."

Behind the American position to support Israel’s massive attacks against Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and Hizbullah positions is a sense -- widely reported from Washington in recent days -- that the Bush-Rice team wants to use this conflict to achieve short-term tactical aims and long-term strategic goals that serve the interests of America, Israel and their few allies in the region.

Short term, the United States would like Israel to wipe out Hizbullah, allow the Lebanese government to send its troops to the south of the country, ensure the safety of northern Israel, cut Syria’s influence down to size, and apply greater pressure on Hizbullah-supporter Iran. The United States opposes a ceasefire, therefore, because, Rice says, "A ceasefire would be a false promise if it simply returns us to the status quo."

This diplomatic position to support Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, coupled with rushing sophisticated precision bombs to Israel from the U.S. arsenal, indicates that Washington seriously aims to fundamentally redraw the political and ideological map of the Middle East in the longer term. If this means yet another Arab land goes up in flames and war, so be it, Washington seems to be saying.

So we now have three Arab countries where American policies and arms have played a major role in promoting chaos, disintegration, mass death and suffering: Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. You can watch them burn -- live on your television sets.

Ironically, these were the three countries that Bush-Rice & Co. have held up as models and pioneers of the American policy to promote freedom and democracy as antidotes to Arab despotism and terrorism.

Washington’s desire to change the face of the Arab world requires removing the last vestiges of anti-American defiance and anti-Israel resistance. The problem for Bush-Rice is that such sentiments probably comprise a majority of Arab people. Most of them flock to Islamist parties and resistance groups like Hamas, Hizbullah, the Muslim Brotherhood and assorted Shiite groups in the Iraqi government.

Syria and Iran are the most problematic governments for Washington in this respect. So there is further irony and much incoherence in the latest American official desire for Arab governments to pressure Syria to reduce its support for Hizbullah and other groups who defy the United States and Israel. The numbing fact that Bush-Rice fail to acknowledge -- perhaps understandably, given the alcoholic’s tendency to evade reality -- is that Washington now can only speak to a few Arab governments (Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere) who are in almost no position to affect anyone other than their immediate families and many guards.

Washington is engaged almost exclusively with Arab governments whose influence with Syria is virtually nonexistent, whose credibility with Arab public opinion is zero, whose own legitimacy at home is increasingly challenged, and whose pro-U.S. policies tend to promote the growth of those militant Islamist movements that now lead the battle against American and Israeli policies. Is Rice traveling to a new Middle East, or to a diplomatic Disneyland of her own imagination?

If Rice pursues contacts in the coming five days that increase Washington’s bias towards Israel, tighten its links with isolated, increasingly impotent Arab governments, and further alienate the masses of Arab public opinion, she will exacerbate the very problem she claims she wants to fix: the spread of violence and terror, practiced simultaneously by the armies of states like the United States, Israel, and police state governments in the Middle East who live by violence as a rule, and by non-state actors like Hizbullah and others like it.

On her long flight from Washington to Palestine-Israel Sunday night, someone should give Condoleezza Rice a modern history book of the Middle East, so that she can cut through the haze of her long political drunken stupor, and finally see more clearly where the problems of this region emanate, where the solutions come from, and how her country can become a constructive rather than a destructive force.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/world/americas/23mexico.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Mexico’s Losing Leftist Defiantly Awaits Election Ruling: July 23, 2006
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

MEXICO CITY, July 22 — As he fights his loss in court, the leftist candidate in Mexico’s July 2 election says he has been the victim of a broad conspiracy among the incumbent, election officials, other party leaders and business tycoons to rob him of the presidency. The candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, charged in an interview on Friday that the vote had been plagued by fraud and widespread human errors. He made it clear he would not accept any ruling from the special electoral court short of an order to recount all 41 million ballots.

How far he would take acts of civil disobedience to protest the results would be guided by “the feelings of the people,” he said. Without a recount, he said, the peace of the country is in jeopardy, a threat his opponents have said amounts to blackmail.

“One can interpret it however one likes,” he said in the interview, at his campaign headquarters here. “It’s very simple,” he added. “If we permit electoral fraud, we are accepting that they violate our human rights, and we are not ready to accept that those who voted be insulted. We are going to defend the vote. We are going to defend the democracy.”

Two weeks ago, an official vote tally showed the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón, of the National Action Party, or PAN, had won by a narrow margin of 243,000. The election is far from over, however. A special electoral court must still rule on hundreds of challenges from both sides before approving the results and naming a victor.

Since the official count, Mr. López Obrador, 52, a former mayor of Mexico City who champions the cause of Mexico’s poor, has been playing a high-stakes game of brinksmanship, appearing on television to hurl allegations of fraud and leading mass demonstrations to demand a recount.

He contends he has found errors in arithmetic in some 72,000 polling places — more than half of the total. He also maintains he has found evidence of fraud in which poll workers took votes away from him or padded the vote for his opponent in dozens of polling places. He has held two marches attended by hundreds of thousands of people and has called on his followers to engage in unspecified acts of civil disobedience.

One problem now for Mr. López Obrador is how to maintain his movement’s momentum for what could be weeks before a decision from the tribunal without spurring his supporters to violence. So far, he has managed to cry fraud while still keeping his protests peaceful. But as the weeks wear on and the court does its work, that balance may become harder to maintain. The tribunal has until Sept. 6 to rule.

In the meantime, Mr. López Obrador has repeatedly challenged his opponent to agree to a recount, arguing that it is the only way to preserve the peace. Even if Mr. Calderón agreed, however, the decision would still be up to the tribunal.

“If he is sure of having won, he doesn’t have any reason to refuse a recount,” Mr. López Obrador said. “Because if he should win, it would strengthen him, he would obtain legitimacy that he doesn’t have because of the unfair way the election was carried out.”

Mr. Calderón, a 42-year-old former energy minister, has said that there is no legal basis for counting the ballots a second time and that Mr. López Obrador is trying to win in the streets what he could not win at the ballot box.

Mr. López Obrador’s incessant drumbeat for a recount has heightened tensions here. This week vandals destroyed billboards and artwork supporting him, while his supporters pounded and kicked Mr. Calderón’s car, an act he refused to condemn.

Beyond his defiant talk, however, lies the uncomfortable fact that Mr. López Obrador has been declared the apparent loser after frittering away a huge lead in a campaign that, as late as March, every political analyst expected he would win. The reasons for his remarkable fall are several, pollsters and political strategists say. First, the turnout in states where Mr. López Obrador was strongest was lower than in the northern states, where Mr. Calderón’s party has its base.

Analysts said Mr. López Obrador might have discouraged his supporters from turning out by insisting until his final rally that he was 10 points ahead and would easily win, even when all the polls, including his own internal surveys, showed a neck-and-neck race at the end.

Second, significant numbers of voters from the third major party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, shifted their support to Mr. Calderón in the final days, several pollsters said.

In no small measure, the shift occurred because the leader of the national teachers union, Elba Esther Gordillo, a former member of the PRI, decided to throw her weight behind Mr. Calderón after she had a falling out with her party’s candidate. Several political experts said this move alone gave Mr. Calderón at least 500,000 votes, twice the winning margin.

Finally, most analysts agree, Mr. López Obrador never fully recovered from Mr. Calderón’s negative advertising blitz that depicted him as a closet leftist dictator and “a danger to Mexico.”
Though the Calderón campaign took the advertisements off the air in late May, the damage had been done, and business leaders picked up the slack in the last two weeks of the campaign, paying millions for ads that warned voters against the dangers of leftist dictators, without mentioning Mr. López Obrador by name.

For Mr. López Obrador, the election night results were a heavy blow. Feeding his sense of disappointment, and his distrust of the results, were the memories of two other elections he believed had been robbed from him, he said.

In 1988, he lost a race for the governorship of Tabasco in an election most historians regard as fraudulent. Then, in 1994, he lost a second race for the governorship, and government investigators later determined his opponent spent millions of dollars to buy votes.

Mr. López Obrador acknowledged Mexico’s electoral system has improved since then, when a one-party state controlled the vote count. But he maintains that this time he was the victim of a more sophisticated scheme to stop him from taking office. For starters, he said, the PRI and the PAN conspired to join forces against him in the north, and his opponents outspent him three to one on television advertisements. More important, in his view, President Vicente Fox campaigned against him illegally and used government programs to help Mr. Calderón, his party’s candidate.
Business leaders linked to the president, meanwhile, began an illegal last-minute blizzard of attack ads against him, he says.

“They, along with the president, are the real coordinators of the PAN’s campaign,” he said. “It cannot be that with money and influence peddling and dirty tricks they can impose a president on the people.”

He added: “Compared to 2000, these elections are dirtier. Personally, it’s very disappointing.”

Mr. López Obrador said that if a recount showed he had lost, he would call off demonstrations, but that he would never accept Mr. Calderón’s victory as legitimate. Some aides say Mr. López Obrador is fighting for a recount to solidify his position as the leader of Mexico’s left and keep his coalition together. Other analysts say Mr. López Obrador is likely to use protests, strikes and whatever opposition alliance he can cobble together in Congress to thwart changes in the state-owned energy sector, the judicial system and the tax system that Mr. Calderón says the country needs to become more competitive.

For now, Mr. López Obrador declines to speculate about his future role. He also will not to say what he would do if the court refuses his demand for a recount, other than to say he will follow the will of his supporters.

“We will go along watching the opinion of the people,” he said. “If the people say that we have to carry out actions of civil disobedience, rough and forceful, we will carry them out. If the people say that we should act with less belligerence, that’s how it will go.”

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http://www.democracynow.org/print.pl?sid=06/07/21/1431251

Israel Warns 300,000 Lebanese To Flee Homes as Ground Invasion Nears
Friday, July 21st, 2006

Israel is warning hundreds of thousands of residents to flee from southern Lebanon as it edges toward a full ground invasion. The number of Lebanese killed from the assaults now tops 330 - nearly all of them civilians. About half a million people have been displaced. Thirty-four Israelis have been killed, including 15 civilians. We speak with Rami Khouri, editor of the Lebanese newspaper, the Daily Star. [includes rush transcript]

Israel is warning hundreds of thousands of residents to flee from southern Lebanon as it edges toward a full ground invasion. Thousands of Israeli troops are reportedly already operating inside the Lebanese border. Israeli planes dropped leaflets and broadcast warnings telling people they would be in danger if they remained in the region.

Meanwhile, Israel's bombardment of Lebanon is continuing for a tenth day. Warplanes targeted more that 40 sites on Friday, mainly in southern Lebanon. The number of Lebanese killed now tops 330 - nearly all of them civilians. About half a million people have been displaced - or one in eight residents. Bombed-out roads and bridges are hampering aid efforts. The UN has warned the humanitarian crisis is worsening by the hour. Thirty-four Israelis have been killed, including 15 civilians killed by rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel.

Rami Khouri, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper and an internationally syndicated political columnist and author. He is Palestinian-Jordanian and a U.S. citizen.
- Website: http://ramikhouri.com/

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined on the phone now by Rami Khouri, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, an internationally syndicated political columnist and author. He is Palestinian Jordanian and a U.S. citizen. He joins us on the phone from Amman, Jordan. Rami Khouri, welcome to Democracy Now! I understand you’re one of the few people trying to get into Lebanon.

RAMI KHOURI: Well, yes. I mean, figuratively there’s some other people trying to get back in. Everybody there is trying to flee. I mean, certainly all the foreigners -- most of the foreigners, not all of them. But I want to get back because our home is there, and my wife and I were in Europe on a personal visit. We couldn't get back to Beirut Airport, because the Israelis had bombed it, so we came to Amman. And we’re going back to Beirut tonight by car via a circuitous route, which we hope will be safe.

But it’s very important for us to go back to stand, first of all, in solidarity with the Lebanese; second of all, in defiance of the Israeli military machine -- I mean, we're going to be safe in our home, we’re not on the frontline -- and third of all, to send a message, I think, to George Bush that this kind of insanity that he is officially sanctioning is one that ordinary people reject and that there is a defiance now of the U.S. and Israel that permeates this entire region. And I think our job as individuals and my job as a journalist is to be there and to cover the story and just to stand our ground.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the images that we’ve been seeing for the last week of the enormous damage and the killing of innocent civilians, the incredible damage to the infrastructure of Lebanon; your thoughts?

RAMI KHOURI: Well, my thoughts are this is doubly tragic, because it’s the third or fourth time that Israel does this. I mean, it’s just extraordinary that a people as enlightened and with such a difficult history as the Jewish and Israeli people would actually now be the perpetrators of this kind of savagery over and over again, and each time they do it they reap a much worse counter-reaction.

You know, they started this in the late ’60s, when there was a couple Fatah guerrillas in South Lebanon. They bombed Beirut Airport in 1968 for the first time. Then what they got back was a much bigger Lebanese resistance, a leftist nationalist resistance, with the PLO. Then they went into Lebanon in the ’70s, and then in ’80 they occupied South Lebanon, and they reaped in return for that Hezbollah. And they went into Hezbollah in 1996. They tried to wipe them out from the south, and what they have now is a much stronger Hezbollah, supported by Syria and Iran, with missiles that are hitting Haifa and Safed and other Israeli towns.

So I think there’s a kind of an irrationality to Zionism that we’re seeing today, or at least to the Israeli political leadership, that just don't seem to get it, that when you repress somebody and you brutalize them, what you get is not acquiescence and subservience. What you get is defiance and resistance. And I think this is a lesson that most military powers have learned. Certainly the Americans learned it in Vietnam. They’re learning in Iraq. The Russians learned it in Afghanistan. And the Israelis seem unable or unwilling to learn these lessons in Lebanon.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, what Israel says is what they get is they break Hezbollah, and they stop the rockets from flying in. They punish them for taking the soldiers, and they are trying to get them back. Can you talk about the beginning of Hezbollah, and can you talk about Israel's rationale?

RAMI KHOURI: Yeah. I mean, Israel's rationale certainly sounds logical from an Israeli point of view. Anybody -- one of the few things I agree with George Bush on on the world is that, yes, everybody has a right and a duty to defend themselves -- there’s no question about that -- which is precisely what Hezbollah is trying to do. They're trying to get back their prisoners in Israel and the bits of land that are still occupied by Israel.

But the way that the Israelis are trying to defend themselves is actually making themselves more vulnerable. It’s enhancing the political resistance to Israel. It is enhancing the political movements all around the Middle East that are the Islamist movements mostly, like Muslim Brothers, Hezbollah, Hamas. These guys are winning elections all over the place. They’re critical of the U.S. They’re critical of Israel. They’re critical of moderate Arab regimes. They’re close to Iran. What Israel is doing is counterproductive to such an extreme degree that it’s really perplexing how such an enlightened people as the Israelis, who have achieved so much in so many other fields, can be so blind to this issue.

This is a political problem that needs a political solution. There is no military solution to a political problem. And this is a war. Hezbollah and Israel have been doing this for many years. Israel has tried this before, has done it. They’ve occupied. They’ve had free-fire zones, blue lines, red lines, green lines, surrogate armies, no-fly zones, occupation zones. They have tried every trick in the book two or three times. They bombed Beirut Airport now three times in the last 25 years. What more do they have in their arsenal that they haven't used?

And what is fascinating, what they should learn as quickly as possible, is that every time they try to generate security through either punitive military attacks or controlling other peoples' lands in South Lebanon, this only inspires Hezbollah and Hamas now to get missiles and rockets that can have longer range. So all Hezbollah does now is fire these over the Israelis. And you’ve had three groups now in the Arab world in the last 15-20 years who have developed rockets to fire over any kind of zones to hit Israel: Iraq, Hezbollah and Hamas. At some point, you’d think the Israeli leaders or people would wake up and see what is the reality and find an alternative political, diplomatic, peaceful, negotiated and legitimate resolution to this conflict, which I think is the only way out now.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And your sense as a journalist of the impact of the fighting, which is now really on three fronts -- the West Bank, Lebanon and Gaza -- on the other Arab governments in the region, particularly those who have come out critical of Hezbollah and these latest armed actions?

RAMI KHOURI: One of the important dimensions of the phenomenon that we’re witnessing, which is the rise of these Islamist political, social and military groups and resistance groups, like Hamas and Hezbollah, is that they are increasing in their credibility and popularity all over the region, mainly because of what they do, but also because they are a strong antidote to the lack of effectiveness and the declining legitimacy of many of the existing Arab regimes and governments and political elites. So what you’re seeing very clearly all over the region is Arab governments who are criticizing Hezbollah, but Arab societies and political culture, mainstream political culture, and certainly the man and woman on the street, who are increasingly supporting Hezbollah and Hamas.

A lot of people are critical of Hezbollah, to be fair, because they’re saying, well, look, you know, Hezbollah brought about this massive Israeli overreaction and has destroyed Lebanon and is really causing incredible pain to people. So there are criticisms of Hezbollah that are strong and sincere, but the support of Hezbollah, I think, is much, much more significant, and it’s not only about this particular incident in the south.

I think Hezbollah, Hamas and these groups represent an organic natural reaction that has brewed and percolated and now is materializing after 15-20 years, a reaction of societies in the Arab world that has been extremely disappointed by the autocracy and corruption and ineffectiveness of their own Arab regimes, by the brutality and occupation of Israel, and by the rather racist and then now neocolonial and imperial in the military policies -- whatever you want to call them -- of the United States. They’re the reliance on using military force, giving Israel the green light to do whatever it wants; that those three issues -- the Israeli policies, the American policies and Arab governments -- all three have really weighed heavily on Arab societies and normal average decent people, and this is the reaction that we’re seeing.

People are not going to live in a vacuum, and they’re not going to be humiliated and degraded. And they’re going to look for alternatives. And the alternative now that seems to be sweeping this region is the Islamist movements, including the ones doing serious military resistance to Israel. And if you look at Hezbollah, Hezbollah is doing something now which no Arab government in the last 50 years has been able to do, which is to fight a war against Israel, be heavily attacked and keep fighting back, hit Israeli cities with rockets, send one-third of the Israeli populations into shelters for two or three days in a row, and traumatize an entire Israeli population, just as Israel has traumatized Palestinian and Lebanese populations for many, many years. So there is something very significant here politically in terms of what’s going on.

And again, I say this with great sort of sorrow, because it’s not something that we should be proud of or happy about. But it does represent a political shift in the balance of power and the balance of terror, and hopefully it will cause both sides, including when they wake up in the White House, to recognize that only a diplomatic negotiated solution is going to resolve these issues.

AMY GOODMAN: Rami Khouri, we want to thank you very much for being with us, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, a Palestinian Jordanian, a U.S. citizen now in Amman trying to make his way into Beirut.

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-sa/2006/jul/22/072205827.html

Castro Gives Chavez Tour of Guevara's Home: July 22, 2006
By DEBORA REY / ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALTA GRACIA, Argentina (AP) - Fidel and Hugo went on a pilgrimage Saturday to Che's house.
In an emotional journey, Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan ally Hugo Chavez toured the Argentine boyhood home of Castro's fallen comrade and legendary guerrilla, Ernesto "Che" Guevara. It was a first visit for both.

"Fidel! Fidel!" and "Hugo! Hugo!" the crowd of 2,000 chanted as the 79-year-old Castro, wearing his trademark green military fatigues, got out of his limousine. Chavez was right by Castro's side as they entered the house amid a crush of security agents.

While Castro made no public comment, he smiled broadly and shook hands with supporters in the crowd. Chavez told reporters the two were delighted by their tour: "Fidel invited me to come and get to know the house. For me, it's a real honor being here."

"We feel it! We feel it! Guevara is right with us!" the crowd shouted Saturday.

Castro first visited Argentina in 1959 after the Cuban revolution and returned to attend a regional summit Friday that inducted Venezuela into the Mercosur trade bloc.

Guevara spent most of his childhood in central Argentina, where his family hoped a mild climate would ease his severe asthma. Guevara's family later moved to Buenos Aires, where he enrolled in medical school before launching the famous motorcycle trip around South America that inspired him to give up medicine for leftist revolution. He was killed in 1967 while directing a guerrilla movement in Bolivia. His remains were taken three decades later to Cuba, where they are entombed under a massive monument.

On Saturday, black-uniformed police with guard dogs kept back the crowd as bystanders jammed the space outside the green-painted, brick-and-tile middle class home in Alta Gracia.

The house bore the famous iconic photograph taken in 1960 that shows the legendary "Che" wearing his classic beret at a jaunty angle. A bronze statue out front also depicted Guevara as a young boy, and a vintage motorbike inside was like the one used by Guevara for his cross-South American trip. The two Latin American leaders also saw memorabilia including Guevara's birth certificate and hand-written letters.

"I'm sure Fidel will be touched because he knew Che so well," said their house tour guide, Lauren Gonzalez. She said Cubans are among favorite pilgrims to the house, but it also draws admirers worldwide because of Guevara's legendary status.

Castro and Chavez viewed the house with three childhood friends of Guevara's - Calica Ferrer, Enrique Martin and Ariel Vidoza - and left 90 minutes later without talking to the press.

Guevara's former home is owned by the city government. Guevara lived in the house for two stretches, first from 1935-1937 and then again from 1939-43. The home is typical of many on narrow streets of Alta Gracia, a community 35 miles southwest of Cordoba, where Castro, Chavez and six other Latin American presidents attended a regional trade summit Friday.

Ana Ledesma, a 50-year-old housewife, said the Castro-Chavez visit had caused a real fuss in her quiet community. "The truth is we are all surprised by Castro's visit," she said. "This has thrown the whole city into a state of shock."

If he had lived today, Guevara would be 78 years old. But his early death in Bolivia at the hands of that country's army helped transform him into a larger-than-life figure. Guevara launched an armed revolt in 1966 to bring communism to Bolivia after helping lead the 1959 Cuban Revolution that ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista and thrust Castro into power. He waged a guerrilla insurgency for 13 months in Bolivia but was captured and executed by the Bolivian army at age 39.

On Friday night, Castro and Chavez, who openly admires the Cuban leader as his political mentor, rallied thousands in Cordoba against U.S.-backed free market policies they blame for many of Latin America's woes.

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http://allafrica.com/stories/200607210712.html

Nine Days To DRC Elections And The Country Says It's Ready
BuaNews (Tshwane) NEWS / Posted to the web July 21, 2006
By Sello Tang And Silindiwe Dube / Tshwane

Logistical requirements for the elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are well in place, ahead of the voting on July 30.

DRC Independent Electoral Commission (IE) chairperson, the Reverend Muholongo Malumalu has confirmed that parliamentary elections will be held as scheduled, noting that voting material, including ballot papers have been received and ready for use. The Reverend Malumalu also expressed appreciation to the South African government for the support it had provided in preparing for the elections, the first in 40 years. He paid special tribute to President Thabo Mbeki and his government for "staying the course in the DRC despite enormous odds". He also thanked IEC chairperson Dr Brigalia Bam and her team for helping his country prepare for the elections.

South Africa has contributed paper for the printing of the ballot papers and has also helped distribute voting papers to 14 hubs in the DRC. According to South Africa's Foreign Affairs Department, a 128-member observer mission from the country has been deployed in the DRC with the latest group of 118 members having left on Wednesday.

The Reverend Malumalu said that about 4000 national and 1500 international observers were already in the country to monitor the process. About 70 international media representatives were also there to cover the elections. Other logistical needs South Africa has provided to the country include about 300 personnel to assist in setting up information technology requirements.

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula, who is leading the observer mission, will be travelling between the country and the DRC throughout the elections to monitor the situation.
The observer mission's participation there comes within the context of South Africa's commitment to resolve conflicts on the African continent and establish democratic institutions.

A few members of the SA Observer Mission will remain in the DRC until August 15 to observe the final outcome of the counting process. The SA defence force together with the United Nations (UN) security forces, have been operating in the DRC for some time now to ensure peace and stability in that country. Several members of the SA Police Service (SAPS) have also been deployed there to beef up security towards and during the elections.

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http://allafrica.com/stories/200607210073.html

Namibia: Aids Negatively Affects Electoral Process
The Namibian (Windhoek) / Posted to the web July 21, 2006
By Brigitte Weidlich

HIV-AIDS could undermine the culture of democracy, reduce the number of voters and decrease the levels of civic participation, a new research paper on the pandemic and democratic governance in Namibia revealed. The report stated that AIDS-related deaths, illnesses and caring for the sick and orphans would reduce the number of citizens who are able to participate in public life and this would impact negatively on the country's electoral process.

Making the findings public on Wednesday in Windhoek, Dr Justine Hunter of the Namibia Institute for Democracy (NID) said more by-elections could be necessary in future due to AIDS-related deaths among parliamentarians and regional councillors and this would result in higher financial burdens for the government.

"Owing to the stigma and secrecy that surrounds HIV-AIDS and the absence of precise illness-related information, it is difficult to determine whether a person (...) working for the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) or a political representative has actually died of an AIDS-related illness," Hunter explained. "It is difficult to ascertain how many by-elections (in Namibia) were actually the result of AIDS since 1990".

The study noted that the high turnover of staff at democratic institutions reduced productivity and caused loss of skills and experience. This would result in governments of developing countries experiencing financial constraints as increased levels of deaths and illnesses eroded the tax base for national budgets. He said democracy could help to slow down the spread of the epidemic and reduce its impact even though HIV-AIDS may undermine democracy.

"Namibia's proportional representation system or party list for parliamentary and local authority elections was superior and the country would be better off maintaining this model.

Any broader electoral reform agenda should incorporate provisions dealing with the impact of HIV-AIDS," the research team recommended.

The report recommends that the National Assembly and the National Council in Namibia expedite their plans to establish an HIV-AIDS Committee each and form the envisaged Joint Committee for parliamentarians of both Houses to deal with HIV-AIDS. The research team further recommended that the Electoral Commission develop policies and strategies to educate both its permanent and temporary staff about HIV-AIDS.

"During elections polling stations and transport facilities should be numerous enough and strategically situated to minimise the distance ailing people have to travel. A postal voting system could be introduced "to make voting more inclusive but needs to be carefully implemented."

The "heavy reliance" of the ECN on sworn statements to put citizens on the voters roll posed a "serious threat" to the electoral body and the Ministry of Home Affairs," the research report noted. About 30 per cent of eligible voters are still allowed to be registered by means of sworn statements.

The research ended in April this year and took five months. It was conducted by Dr Justine Hunter and Doris Kellner of the NID and Graham Hopwood.

"We will take this research report to the Electoral Commission, the Ministry of Health and the political parties for input, Dr Hunter said. "By early 2007, it will be available in book form," she added.

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http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/julio/vier21/31cordoba.html

Fidel in Córdoba: Havana. July 21, 2006
• Historic visit, headlines say • Large group of Córdoba residents welcome the Cuban president
BY NIDIA DIAZ AND JUVENAL BALAN (photo)— Special correspondents—

CORDOBA, Argentina, July 20 — Fidel has arrived. At 8:25 p.m. local time (7:25 Havana time), the IL-62 landed at this city’s airport, bringing the Cuban president to participate as a special guest in the 30th Summit of the Southern Common Market, Mercosur. There was a great sense of expectation among the journalists accredited for the event, and their number began to grow as Fidel’s presence was anticipated.

When, on the Press Center’s TV screens, the Cuban president’s figure appeared at the top of the stairs of his airplane, a huge shout of "Bravo, Fidel!" filled the room, followed by sustained applause. At that moment, our colleague from Prensa Latina, Roberto Molina, told us, the lights were downed so that the images from the airport could be seen better.

A historic visit, is what the local headlines are saying, and others are affirming that with the Cuban president’s arrival, everything is ready for the Summit to begin. Fidel, like the other leaders, was received by Juan Schretti, deputy governor of Córdoba, and Mayor Luis Juez.

The Cuban president was accompanied by an official delegation comprising Carlos Lage, vice president of the Council of State; Felipe Pérez Roque, foreign minister, and other ministers and prominent Cuban individuals.

This is Fidel’s fourth visit to the homeland of Che Guevara. The Argentine people received him in May 1959, and he was also a guest in San Carlos de Bariloche, venue of the Ibero-American Summit in October 1995. In May 2003, he came to Buenos Aires for the investiture of the current Argentine president. Córdoba, site of the first major university reform, is his current venue.

A large group of Córdoba residents were waiting outside the airport and the hotel where the Cuban delegation is staying, holding up Cuban flags and placards with messages of welcome.
Cries of "Viva Fidel!" and "Viva Cuba!" could be heard when the Cuban president’s plane touched ground, and the local TV station broadcast the event live.

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http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/julio/juev20/caravana.html

Peace caravan harassed on return to USA: Havana. July 20, 2006

THE 17th Pastors for Peace Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba crossed back into the United States via Hidalgo, Texas on Monday morning July 17, after delivering 60 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba, followed by an informative and exciting eight-day educational visit to the island.

”The motto of our 17th caravan has been ‘Cuba is our neighbor: End the blockade now,’” said Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., executive director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace. “We are called by our faith to resist any law which would keep us from fulfilling our biblical mandate to love our neighbor.”

Members of the caravan remained highly disciplined and in excellent spirits as they faced interrogation and searches by more than 75 Homeland Security and Treasury officials. The caravanistas successfully resisted efforts to fingerprint them and isolate them for questioning.

The entire process took five hours, including attempts at interrogation and hand searches of their personal luggage.

International members of the caravan from Canada and Europe received the highest level of harassment. They were isolated and interrogated in a back room, and were threatened with denial of reentry into the US if they did not fully cooperate.

One aggressive Cuban-American plainclothes agent, who repeatedly refused to identify herself or the US agency for which she works, took photographs of caravanistas, asked harassing questions, and was finally reduced to spending 20 minutes rifling through the papers in Rev. Walker’s briefcase.

”Today’s ‘welcome home’ ceremony by our government is yet another desperate attempt by a failing empire to try to defend an indefensible policy,” said Rev. Walker. “It is shameful that they continue to cater to extremist interests in South Florida, in order just to win a few votes.”

Last year, more than 100 participants in recent Pastors for Peace caravans received letters from OFAC threatening them with fines for traveling to Cuba. “We don’t know what will await us this time,” said IFCO board member Rev. Luis Barrios, “but we refuse to be intimidated from fulfilling our mission of humanitarian aid and fellowship.”

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http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1779

I would rather have President Chavez than George Bush
Me, Hugo and George: Monday, Jul 17, 2006
By: Cindy Sheehan

When I was growing up in Bellflower, Ca., I never, as a child with a good imagination, could have ever imagined that my life would take the peculiar turn that it has. I could not have foreseen giving birth to a child that would eventually be wrongfully and devastatingly killed in war or that I would be meeting with world leaders or be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Along with the Vice President of Spain, Foreign Minister of Ireland, Attorney General of Australia and countless parliamentarians from all over the globe, one of the world leaders that I have met and spent a good amount of time with on my journey is President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Due to the propaganda media and the ignorance of many of my fellow Americans, I have been heavily criticized for my visit. I would like to remind my neighbors all over the country that we do have diplomatic relations with Venezuela and we are not at war with that country.

On a recent appearance that I made on MSNBC's Hardball which was being guest hosted by Norah O' Donnell, she introduced me as someone who has been photographed with "dictator" Hugo Chavez. After the introduction and in a very short subsequent break, I looked at her and said: "You know President Chavez is not a dictator. He has been democratically elected to his office 8 times."

To which she replied: "We had a big discussion about that and we decided that he ruled like a dictator." That statement really shocked, yet irritated me, because I can't believe that MSNBC and Norah O'Donnell would perpetuate the myth that President Chavez is a dictator and mislead and misinform their viewers, because contrary to facts, they "decided that he ruled like a dictator."

"Then you should call George Bush a dictator." I said right before we were given the signal that the interview was beginning.

During the segment which Norah called an interview and I would like to better term as an "attack," (I gave her a hug after the attack: it seemed like she really needed one) we got on the subject of Hugo Chavez and I ended up admitting that I would rather have him as a leader than George Bush. Since this truthful admission, which comes from experience and research, my life has been threatened several times and the hate mail to the GSFP website has increased dramatically.

There are many brilliant pieces written from a more scholarly point of view defending the administration of President Chavez and trying to educate our corporate owned media-misled citizenry about the politics, economics and civil society of Venezuela. Most recently and notably an article by Jeff Cohen entitled, "Go to Venezuela, You Idiot." So, instead of writing a scholarly piece, I would like to make some personal observations about the regimes of George Bush and Hugo Chavez.

First of all and most importantly and as far as I can recall, Hugo has not invaded any countries in baseless wars of aggression justified by lies. George has. As a matter of fact, instead of using "Cowboy Diplomacy" and "Bring 'em on" rhetoric, President Chavez has skillfully used his country's resources as a diplomatic tool to make friends and coerce good behavior from other countries. George uses our children in the Armed Forces to strong arm his way into other countries making enemies for the USA and leaving death and destruction wherever he goes.

Secondly, Hugo is an effective orator who can lecture on any topic for hours (believe me!). He is smart, personable, has a great sense of humor, and takes the time to get to know people on a human level. (He never called me "Mom" once the entire time I was with him---unlike George). I was with him three times in Venezuela and each time he gave lengthy speeches about American (North and South) history never using a single note: tying our histories together with the present in very meaningful ways. On the other hand, George Bush can barely speak when he is reading from a teleprompter and looks like a deer caught in headlights when he has to speak off the cuff or answer a question that he hasn't been well prepared for. He thinks that people want to put food on their families and if he doesn't know a word, he can just make one up.

When Ms. O' Donnell called President Chavez a dictator, I bet she didn't even know that our CIA orchestrated a coup attempt against President Chavez in 2002 and in the last electoral referendum that Chavez agreed to submit to in 2004, he was re-confirmed as President with 60 percent of the vote which was certified by an international election commission headed by "left-wing, nutcase," Jimmy Carter. George Bush attained his office by two heavily tainted elections that should more rightly be called coups. To steal two elections and say and act like you have a mandate to destroy the world; to circumvent Congress at every turn with "signing statements" and just not telling them things; to wiretapping Americans without proper warrants; to reading our emails and looking at bank records without warrants; to illegally detaining people and torturing them; to insisting on staying a course in Iraq that is killing nearly more innocent people per month than were killed in our country on 9/11; to authorizing the leak of covert agents' names; to selling our democracy to the highest bidders such as the likes of Jack Abramoff; to appointing avowed U.N. hater John Bolton to the U.N. in a recess appointment because he knew that a normal confirmation process would fail; to allowing the neocons to take over our foreign policy to the detriment of our nation; to etc, etc---I ask Norah O' Donnell and MSNBC who is the dictator here? George or Hugo?

The media is far freer in Venezuela than it is here in the US. Stations after station are hostile to the Chavez government even openly calling for his over throw at times. Our corporate owned media are either very ill-informed about world affairs or current events, thereby keeping us ill-informed, or they are complicit propaganda tools of this administration. Heaven forbid that one of the outlets, such as the New York Times, should truthfully report that BushCo did something illegal, then the outlet will be accused of doing something wrong! Conversely, we have cheerleaders in the same outlet such as Judith Miller who conspired with Scooter Libby to out CIA agent Valerie Plame. I would love to see a segment where MSNBC show hosts are brought together to discuss such subjects as the high-jacking of our democracy and/or George's lies and war of terror on the world, instead of me.

One of the reasons that President Chavez is demonized and threatened by BushCo is that he has forced American companies in his country to pay their fair share of taxes and do business properly in Venezuela. Hugo is resisting the corporate colonialism that has characterized US forced relations with South America since the USA has been a country. And one thing that we all know, or should know, BushCo is especially beholden and subservient to the corporations.

Hugo Chavez also wants to finally realize Simon de Bolivar's vision of a united South America which can be together stronger to live more peacefully with the US and stand in solidarity against the constant meddling of all of our regimes in their affairs. North Americans should know about the despicable history of US interference in South America before they throw stones at people who want to have fully autonomous countries with control over their own natural resources.

Hugo is also doing something that George would never think of doing: he is taking from the rich to help the poor. Literacy is currently almost 100% in Venezuela and social programs in health and education have dramatically improved since he took office and while the poverty rate is still high, it has made vast improvements. George is a reverse Robin Hood and even steals from our grandchildren's future to further enrich the already obscenely rich of the present. I would rather live under a President like Hugo who tries to improve living conditions in his country than someone like George who is demolishing our social structures and making the poor, poorer.

I will readily admit that I did say that I would rather have President Chavez than President Bush, but I didn't say that I would rather live in Venezuela. I am an American and I love my country which I believe is on a distinctly disordered course right now. I also believe that my country can do better and I am willing to fight to realize a vision for America where the rich share with the poor and we achieve 100% literacy and schools, day care centers, parks and clinics are built instead of prisons and the already bloated military industrial war complex.

While the world seems to be coming apart at the seams, it is also important for our main stream, corporate owned media to get their facts straight and report the news truthfully and with integrity instead of being tools for war and greed. Thousands of people are dying while the media are carrying out vendettas for Karl Rove.

Yes, I would rather have President Chavez than George Bush. But truthfully, I would rather have countless numbers of people as my president than George Bush. George Bush is an out of control criminal that needs to be impeached for his lies; removed from office for his transgressions; and imprisoned for his crimes against humanity.

George should never have been President in the first place and he has been president of my country for far too long already.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is a co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace and the author of two books: Not One More Mother's Child and Dear President Bush. She is currently on Day 12 of the Troops Home Fast.

Original source / relevant link:
Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0716-21.htm

Link: "Go to Venezuela, You Idiot." by Jeff Cohen
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1774

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