[APR-news] December 28, 2005

Wed Dec 28 16:53:30 GMT 2005

Alternative Press Review - Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream
www.altpr.org - December 28, 2005
"Magazine of the Year" -  2005 Press Action Award

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http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=561&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
What everyone should know about Jose Padilla
by Mike Whitney

The constitution is the last flimsy obstacle between Bush and absolute 
power. That is why the administration has persisted for nearly 4 years in 
its case against Jose Padilla. The Padilla case has nothing to do with Al 
Qaida, "dirty bombers" or terrorism. These are simply the empty diversions 
that conceal the administration's real intention; to remove the final 
impediment to the supreme authority of the executive.

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Other articles of interest

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20051225225156434
Paramilitaries and Palm Plantations: A Murderous Combination in Colombia
Kari Lydersen, Infoshop News

Campesinos like Ernesto were forced to sell their land at below-market 
prices under threats from paramilitary members. Then, according to Jorge, 
Urapalma declared title to 30,000 hectares and planted 8,000 hectares with 
African palms. To facilitate the palm plantation, they deforested much of 
the land and drained its rivers and wetlands with a system of canals. "The 
palm farms are a major way for paramilitaries to launder money from 
narco-trafficking," said Jorge. "In the whole country, four million hectares 
of land have been acquired in this way and used for mono-industries like 
cacao and palm that are ecologically destructive and used for narco money 
laundering."

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=9393
Growing Movement of Community Radio in Venezuela
Sujatha Fernandes, ZNet

Four young people sit around a large table, writing furiously amid piles of 
notes, cans of soda, and scrunched up papers. They could be kids doing their 
homework or studying for exams. But these young women from the shantytowns, 
aged between 17 and 22 years, are preparing for their hour-long program, 
"Public Power," on air in ten minutes on community radio station Radio 
Perola, 92.3FM, in the Caracas parish of Caricuao.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11380.htm
Bolivia: race and revolution
Gwynne Dyer, ICH

In the past, policies that are unpopular in the United States have proved to 
be bad for the president's health in a number of Latin American countries. 
To those who argue that the Bush administration is too deeply mired in the 
war in Iraq to contemplate acting against Morales, the pessimists point out 
that the U.S. found the time to organize the overthrow of the president in 
Chile in 1973 despite being neck-deep in the Vietnam war. The election of 
Morales, they fear, will finally focus Washington's attention on how 
countries all over Latin America are rejecting U.S. tutelage.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122605I.shtml
Big Brother Bush Is Listening
Marjorie Cohn, Truthout

In an assertion of executive power that rivals the excesses of the McCarthy 
era of the late 1940's and 1950's, and the dreaded COINTELPRO 
(counter-intelligence program) of the 1950's and 1960's, George W. Bush's 
National Security Agency has been secretly spying on United States citizens 
without warrants for the last three years.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0512i.asp
Bush's Secret Surveillance State
Anthony Gregory, FFF

The NSA spying program is especially egregious, given that the 
administration circumvented the already lower standards for surveillance set 
forth by FISA and unleashed an arm of the military to spy on Americans' 
communications. But it is only the newest blunt tool of the secretive 
surveillance state to come to light.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/27/how-britain-denies-its-holocausts/
Why do so few people know about the atrocities of empire?
George Monbiot, monbiot.com

Without legal coercion, without the use of baying mobs to drive writers from 
their homes, we have developed an almost infinite capacity to forget our own 
atrocities.
Atrocities? Which atrocities? When a Turkish writer uses that word, everyone 
in Turkey knows what he is talking about, even if they deny it vehemently. 
But most British people will stare at you blankly. So let me give you two 
examples, both of which are as well documented as the Armenian genocide.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11391.htm
Telling it like it isn't
Robert Fisk, LA Times

Illegal Jewish settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land are clearly 
"colonies," and we used to call them that. I cannot trace the moment when we 
started using the
word "settlements." But I can remember the moment around two years ago when 
the word "settlements" was replaced by "Jewish neighborhoods" - or even, in 
some cases, "outposts." Similarly, "occupied" Palestinian land was softened 
in many American media reports into "disputed" Palestinian land - just after 
then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in 2001, instructed U.S. embassies in 
the Middle East to refer to the West Bank as "disputed" rather than 
"occupied" territory.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,392319,00.html
"Darwinism Completely Refutes Intelligent Design"
Interview with Daniel Dennett, Spiegel Magazine (Germany)

The argument for design, I think, has always been the best argument for the 
existence of God and when Darwin comes along he pulls the rug out from under 
that.

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NewsWire

http://mediamatters.org/items/200512230005
Chris Matthews: 2005's Misinformer of the Year

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500665_pf.html
Bush Personally Trying To Curb Papers' Coverage Of Damaging Stories

http://www.unknownnews.org/0512271223Woodcock.html
Judge strikes down fees and restrictions on marches

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/28/nyregion/28anarchist.html
When scholarship and politics collided at Yale

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7904.shtml
NSA just one of many federal agencies spying on Americans

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=118780&format=text
Public transit system tracking your every move

http://lefti.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_lefti_archive.html#113561593449661623
The effort to put lipstick on Colin Powell continues

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-fishedout-planet/2005/12/26/1135445524726.html
The fished-out planet

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9072-1959462,00.html
Energy question may spell end of the good life for the West

http://www.canadianshield.org/Kaan/consumption.htm
Consumption and the affect on our societies

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/26/10333/046
Watch it crash: your healthcare, your pension, your house

http://villagevoice.com/news/0552,ridgeway,71324,6.html
The slow death of the American pension system

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Dec05/Whitney1227.htm
The housing market's last gasp

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/122805_world_stories.shtml#0
Train wreck of the week: the end of the housing bubble

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/pm110
What's wrong with the economy

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=834f2501-4934-4707-b732-7371c996eb9e&k=63695
Watch the price of gas explode

http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10399
Keen grasp of the obvious: US offensive targets civilians, not fighters

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17663941%255E1702,00.html
US torture gulags in Iraq overcrowded with thousands upon thousands of 
kidnap victims

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/12/bushies_refusin.html
Govt refusing to diagnose returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress 
disorder

http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=270137
Indigenous Intifada in Bolivia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4562114.stm
Argentine workers take control

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3C12C83E-1D3C-48DD-90E2-192DAF45451C.htm
Philippine rebels to target US troops

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/26/news/france.php
In French suburbs, rage 'is only asleep'

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D8D8FCB6-524C-48D3-B851-6F01C7FAECAC.htm
Former German hostage: 'My kidnappers were not criminals'

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1227/p01s04-woeu.html
Why European women are turning to Islam

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-slaves27dec27,1,3573711.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
Slave labor: North Koreans Toil Abroad under Grim Conditions

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