2008

By Cernig
Wednesday Dec 24, 2008
CrooksandLiars.com
Via
my Newshoggers colleague Anderson comes
this:
By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population. (See Annex III.)
The
Bush administration, speaking for the U.S.A., therefore must consider it tolerable
that 6 million children die every day – children who could be fed if we weren’t
wasting billions on stealth fighters, littoral combat boondoggles and non-effective
defense against non-existant ballistic missiles from Iran.

Dec. 29, 2008
Associated Press
MIAMI – U.S. prosecutors want a Miami judge to sentence the son of former Liberian
President Charles Taylor to 147 years in prison for torturing people when he
was chief of a brutal paramilitary unit during his father’s reign.
… A recent Justice Department court filing describes torture — which the
U.S. has been accused of in the war on terror — as a "flagrant and
pernicious abuse of power and authority" that warrants severe punishment
of Taylor.
"It undermines respect for and trust in authority, government and a rule
of law," wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Heck Miller in last week’s
filing (emphasis added). "The gravity of the offense of torture is beyond dispute."

Interview: Monday, Dec 29, 2008 from 4 – 6 pm Pacific Time
Activist singer-songwriter Vic Sadot has a new CD out, 9/11 Truth & Justice
Songs. Vic will be interviewed by Che X on the popular San Francisco station
known as Pirate Cat Radio.
Vic Sadot has been an activist since his college days when campus activists
at the University of Delaware convinced him that we were being lied to about
the Vietnam War. Songwriter Phil Ochs became a hero to Vic and his brothers
and sisters from 1968 until Ochs’ shocking suicide in 1976. In May of
1973 Vic was a community volunteer at Georgetown University’s WGTB. He
jumped at the opportunity to interview Phil Ochs. Vic wrote a tribute song to
Phil Ochs a year after Ochs died: Broadside Balladeer.

Vic’s current project is a Limited Edition collectors item fitting for
a first announcement on a show like Pirate Cat Radio’s “Notes from
the Underground”. The show will be archived and available for mp3 download
within 2 hours after the broadcast concludes. “9/11 Truth & Justice
Songs” was begun in Delaware studios. Vic moved to Berkeley, California
in September of 2008.

Project Censored’s list of stories here includes “Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror,” which is reprinted below.

#1.
Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
#
2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
#
3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
#
4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
#
5 Seizing War ProtestersÂ’ Assets
#
6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
#
7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
#
8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
#9
Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
#
10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
#
11 El SalvadorÂ’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
#
12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
#
13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
#
14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
#
15 Worldwide Slavery
#
16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
#
17 UNÂ’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
#
18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
#
19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
#
20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
#
21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
#
22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
#
23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
#
24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror (Reprinted below)
#
25 BushÂ’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

For Immediate Release: December 22, 2008
Contact: Krista Minteer (212) 845-5207

Human Rights Group Requests Stay in KSM’s Military Commission Case
New York–Human Rights First filed a friend-of-the-court brief today, requesting
a stay of proceedings in the military commission case of the alleged 9/11 conspirators,
United States v. Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, et al. until after President-elect
Barack Obama takes office. Obama has repeatedly criticized the military commissions,
and he has vowed to close Guantanamo and try suspected terrorists in ordinary
criminal or military courts.
The amicus brief was filed in response to a request by Muhammed and his co-defendants,
made during a court appearance on December 8th, to withdraw all legal motions
and plead guilty. The military judge, Army Col. Stephen Henley adjourned the
case temporarily to allow for mental competency evaluations of two of the defendants
and for the government to brief whether the Military Commissions Act permits
guilty pleas in a capital case. But the military prosecutors are continuing
to press forward with the case, and they are likely to seek another hearing
before President-elect Obama takes office. Three of the five detainees, including
Muhammed, are representing themselves and have resisted working with the military
lawyers assigned to assist them.