Chas Freeman’s statement via Laura Rozen:

You will by now have seen the statement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair reporting that I have withdrawn my previous acceptance of his invitation to chair the National Intelligence Council.

I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country. I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.

Continue reading →

Viva Palestina Email Alert
19.00 (GMT) Tuesday 11th March

THE ‘ANGELS’ ARE IN TOWN

Gaza woke up this morning not to the sounds of F16s and the awful smells and white smoke of phosphorous bombs, but to the amazing sights of those ‘angels’ who have defied the odds to be with them in this time of great need.

Today Gaza is in celebration, you can see for the first time in a long while a smile on the faces of traumatised young children who cannot fathom what is going on around them.

[Read the report]

Related:
Galloway hails Haneyya’s government in Gaza

“I want to break the sanctions imposed on the legitimate and duly elected PA government in Gaza Strip”, underlined Galloway.

He also presented 25,000 G.B. pounds and three vehicles to Premier Ismael Haneyya, saying, “This is not charity… this is politics, and I believe that the government of Haneyya is the right party to give donations to.”

He also deprecated the European governments for participating in the siege on Gaza, saying, “If you want to put me on trial you wouldn’t find a jury to convict me, but the jury would convict you because you besieged Palestine.”

[Read the report]

Empire according to Oliver Stone’s Dick Cheney.

Locals look at the car in which human rights workers and investigators Paul Oulu and Oscar Kingara were shot dead in Nairobi. Photograph: Karel Prinsloo/AP

8 March 2009
WIKILEAKS EDITORIAL

On Thursday afternoon, Oscar Kamau Kingara, director of the Kenyan based Oscar legal aid Foundation, and its programme coordinator, John Paul Oulo, were shot dead at close range in their car less than a mile from President Kibaki’s residence. The two were on their way to a meeting at the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights.

[Read the report]

By Charles Kernaghan

[This is an excerpt from the introduction and executive summary of a report released by the National Labor Committee in February 2009, High Tech Misery in China: The Dehumanization of Young Workers Producing Our Computer Keyboards. Click here to download the full report in PDF format.]

“I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tools we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user…The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.” — Bill Gates

“We feel like we are serving prison sentences.” — factory worker making Microsoft keyboards

The new assembly line: Making computer keyboards and other peripherals for Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft and IBM

[Read the report]