News ‘n Views: Some Current Pickings
Some time-pressed recent links I found of interest rather than write-up(s) as I take some time out.
Like many people, I have experimented with social bookmarking sites (Reddit, Newsvine, Clipmarks, Delicious, Digg etc) that are very useful in collecting and organising your bookmarked links, though they do seem to be predicated upon the links being permanently live — if you also use primary news sources such as press agencies (Reuters, AP), you’ll know that often valuable articles are not archived and URL links lapse.
So a year ago, I started up a group-list, commonly used for notification and/ or as fora for discussion, simply for the purposes of archiving articles. The articles are all full-text contemporary political pieces I find valuable and/or interesting and send to the list where they can be archived and accessed anytime, anywhere, by members. My fellow members are free to add to and access articles in this shared archive. I’m going to open it up for subscription for a short time for those who may be interested in the types of issues Peoples Geography covers. As it can be a high volume list, I encourage people to choose the Daily Digest or No Email option which I myself choose (lets you access all articles online rather than receiving them individually by email online). Click here if you happen to be interested in joining.
Australia
Two issues have marked media coverage: Defence Minister Brendan Nelson’s admission that the war on Iraq was, in part, about oil, and the federal government’s heavy-handed approach sending in the military to remote indigenous communities using child protection as a justification.
- ABC News (Australia), Iraq deployment linked to oil: Nelson, 5 July
- Adrian Newstead, Paternalism, Petrol and Paedophilia, HomePage Daily, nd
- Dave on Fire, Apartheid Down Under – Welfare, Not Warfare, 26 June
- Peter Robson, Indigenous communities reject Howard’s racist hypocrisy, GLW, 29 June
- The Orstrahyun, Howard Hits Iraq Oil Slick As Truth Becomes A WMD/ Murdoch’s Media Rewrites Stories After Furious Calls From Prime Minister’s Office, 7 July
- James Sturcke, Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian defence minister, Guardian, 5 July
Economy
- Monte Asbury, (On Kiva): I helped Grace’s business!, 4th July
- Catherine Austin Fitts, The American Tapeworm (Overcoming Tapeworm Economics)
- Mike Whitney, Another Great Depression?: The Fed’s Role in the Bear Stearns Hedge Funds Meltdown, Global Research, 1 July
Iran
- Al Alam, Iran, Iraq to Build Joint Power Plant
- IRIN, Iran, Venezuela to establish joint oil company, Payvand, 3 July
Iraq
- Pepe Escobar, Iraq, the new Israel, Asia Times, 6 July
- 24 Steps to Liberty, “Soft Partition” of Iraq!, 7 July
- David Bacon, Iraqi Oil: A Benchmark or a Giveaway? Why Iraqi oil workers oppose the much-vaunted oil law, The American Prospect, 6 July
- Sarah Baxter, Powell tried to talk Bush out of war, Sunday Times, 8 July:
THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.
- Tim Butcher, ‘Israel behind secret land grab’, Telegraph (UK), 10 July
- Meron Benvenisti, The Case for Shared Sovereignty, The Nation, 18 June
- Steven Erlanger, Israeli Settlements Exceed Boundaries, Report Says, NY Times, 6 July
- Peter Hounam, Vanunu suffers yet another sentence, The Sunday Times, 8 July
- Uri Avnery, An Israeli Love Story, Gush Shalom, 8 July
- Dan Izenberg, Right’s group: Israel ruining economy in Gaza Strip, J-Post
- Daniel Ellsberg, Libby and Vanunu, Z Net, 7 July
Palestine
- Mark Perry, Hamas is the address for doing business, Conflicts Forum, July 5, 2007
- Stephen Lendman, Making Gaza ‘Scream’, The Peoples Voice/ Stephen’s blog
- Donald Macintyre, Gaza economy on the brink as 85% of residents live on aid, The Independent: “Gaza’s industry is in a state of collapse because imports and exports to the Strip have been blocked by Israel since Hamas won internal control of the territory three weeks ago after the civil conflict.”
- MAAN News, Releasing only 250 Fatah prisoners
- Associated Press, EU scales back Gaza-Egypt border monitoring mission, Haaretz (7 July)
- Oxfam Press Release, Gaza refugees Facing Massive Water Cuts, Disease, 6 July
War On Of Terror
- Rachel Morris, Prisoner 345: What happened to Al Jazeera’s Sami al-Haj, Columbia Journalism Review, July/August
- Kurt Nimmo, “Behavior-Detection” Graduates from Airports to Bus and Train Stations, ADE, 5 July
- William S. Lind, The Death of the RMA: What Israel’s Defeat in Lebanon Means for Defense Industry Fat Cats, Counterpunch, 4 July
- Larry Chin, Al-Qaeda, the Eternal Covert Operation: British “Terror” Incident latest Product of “War on Terror” Propaganda, Global Research, 5 July
US Foreign Policy
- Kurt Nimmo, On Cue, “al-Qaeda” Threatens Iran, ADE, 9 July
- Anthony DiMaggio, The New York Times & the “Anti-War” Turn, Z Net, 9 July
- James Petras, US Middle East Wars: Social Opposition and Political Impotence, 4 July
- Ismael Hossein-zadeh, Parasitic Imperialism, Counterpunch, 7-8 July
- General William E. Odom, ‘Supporting the troops’ means withdrawing them, Nieman Watchdog, 5 July
- Scott Ritter, A Farewell to Arms Control, Truthdig, 7 July
- E&P Staff, GOP Congressman Tells ‘Sac Bee’ Board: Time to Start Iraq Pullout, Editor and Publisher, 5 July
- Greg Mitchell, Consider the Source: ‘NYT’ Reporter Targets Iran, Media Info, 3 July
I don’t get what so controversial? Mr. Nelson said the truth, do they think that we don’t know that? I believe main streamers like Ted Koppel have said as much
Agreed. Big brouhaha over saying the obvious says a lot about our current political climate. Some cynics suggest that this much ado over not much and something most intelligent beings can see was but to deflect attention from the impending military operation in remote aboriginal communities.