THE G-20 IN PITTSBURGH
by Tom Over 9-23-09
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On Tuesday, Sept 22, activists from Philadelphia, New York City, Pittsburgh and other cities held a mock funeral procession to demand better policies for addressing the AIDS pandemic, a day ahead of the arrival of delegates for the G-20.
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The approximately 50 participants in the New Orleans-style funeral march drew a mix of interest, irritation, and amusement from onlookers in the business district of downtown Pittsburgh.
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At the head of the funeral march where pallbearers carried a cardboard coffin, a man shouted into a microphone while someone else carried a portable amplifier, “when people with AIDS are under attack, what do we do ?” and marchers shouted in unison, “fight back!”
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Amidst the early afternoon bustle of an weekday, the demonstrators repeated this call-and-answer and similar chants as the funeral march made its way around the perimeter of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the site of the G-20 Summit later this week.
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Erica Goldberg works with ACT UP Philadelphia. She said global health is not on the agenda of the G-20 Summit.
“One of the things that some of the G-20 nations have promised us is funding for the global fund to fight, TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. This is all really important, especially if we want to meet the United Nations’ Millennium goal of eradicating these diseases by 2015. As of right now, this won’t be met. We have to hold our leaders accountable. They are the ones making decisions for the poorer countries,” Goldberg said.
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She commented on the timing of the demonstration. “We wanted this to be the first thing they (the G-20 delegates) see. They’re coming here tomorrow. We’re holding them accountable. This needs to be on the agenda.”
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She said AIDS activists chose Sept 22, two days before the official start of the G-20 Summit, and one day before the arrival of the delegates, so as to not have to compete with other protests. Also, she said the AIDS activists figured there would be less of a chance of conflict with police if they staged their protest earlier in the week.
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“We hope that this will hit the papers tomorrow, that it’s the first thing they see when they walk in, that they have this on their conscience and know we’re not going away,” Goldberg said. She urges people to contact legislators about supporting the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
“President Obama, as much as I love him, went back on his promise to fulfill the funding,” Goldberg said.
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She commented on how drug companies factor into all of this. “ Medication does not need to be this expensive. They can definitely lower their prices. We have big drug interests lobbying to prevent AIDS medication from getting” to developing nations.
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Goldberg said debt cancellation for developing nations is a factor that comes into play.
“When you don’t cancel debts of nations and they have to pay back loans to the IMF and the World Bank, they won’t have the funds necessary for getting AIDS medication, or they might get the medication but can’t pay the health professional because of their debt.
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She said vested interested motivated by huge profits stand in the way of doing a better job of addressing tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. “We have the power, the ability, and the medication.”
World News
BANGKOK, Thailand -- An American facing possible expulsion or imprisonment for creating a Web site luring suicidal people to die in Cambodia, said he made no money from his morbid venture and did it after failing to convince a California town to legalize euthanasia.
"I did not start this to make money, I did it because I believe in a person's right to choose the time, place, and manner of their own death," Roger Graham, a former California resident, said in an e-mail interview from his base in Kampot, Cambodia.
"I have made zero dollars off my Web site," Graham said.
"I am semi-retired at 57 years, although I do operate a small coffee and internet cafe in Kampot, Cambodia," he said, referring to a tourist-friendly, coastal town about 80 miles southwest from Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.
"I lived most recently in the (United) States, in Paradise, California. I had an antique shop and sold on eBay, the Internet auction site.
"I did not start this to make money, I did it because I believe in a person's right to choose the time, place, and manner of their own death," Roger Graham, a former California resident, said in an e-mail interview from his base in Kampot, Cambodia.
"I have made zero dollars off my Web site," Graham said.
"I am semi-retired at 57 years, although I do operate a small coffee and internet cafe in Kampot, Cambodia," he said, referring to a tourist-friendly, coastal town about 80 miles southwest from Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.
"I lived most recently in the (United) States, in Paradise, California. I had an antique shop and sold on eBay, the Internet auction site.
Sir Maynard Keyenes idea to rid the glut of consumer products that
periodically choke industrial production, and are the primary cause of
economic depression, was to use the government treasury to create work by
financing public works projects. This was tried by the Roosevelt
administration but didn't work. The reason was that it further stimulated
industry to the point of adding more surpluses to the pile of consumer goods
that choked the economy and it wasn't until the outbreak of WWII that the
great depression ended.
Billy Joel was on to something when he sang "Only the Good Die Young." Here in America, our government does not jail its dissidents; it launches programs like COINTELPRO to pursue them (with reckless disregard for the law), and to covertly engineer their assassinations. Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King, the Kennedy brothers, and Malcolm X are but a few of "the Good" who dared to challenge the wealthy US ruling elite’s malevolent domination over the poor, minorities and working class. In the "land of the free", your right to dissent (and to live) ends when you begin posing a serious threat to those who truly wield the power.
Now it’s about the Niger forgeries.
On Friday, after securing a five-count criminal indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for lying to a grand jury about what he knew and when he knew it in regard to the outing of a covert CIA agent, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald plans to pursue broader conspiracy charges against Cheney senior White House officials, and top officials at the State Department and the National Security Council, that may finally shed light on how the Bush administration came to use erroneous intelligence that claimed Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger, lawyers involved in the two year old investigation said.
While many federal officials and the media have long speculated that Fitzgerald was not only looking into the identity of administration officials who leaked undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to a handful of reporters but also into the veracity of the Niger documents that are at the heart of the leak, it was only recently that those rumors were confirmed.
On Friday, after securing a five-count criminal indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for lying to a grand jury about what he knew and when he knew it in regard to the outing of a covert CIA agent, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald plans to pursue broader conspiracy charges against Cheney senior White House officials, and top officials at the State Department and the National Security Council, that may finally shed light on how the Bush administration came to use erroneous intelligence that claimed Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger, lawyers involved in the two year old investigation said.
While many federal officials and the media have long speculated that Fitzgerald was not only looking into the identity of administration officials who leaked undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to a handful of reporters but also into the veracity of the Niger documents that are at the heart of the leak, it was only recently that those rumors were confirmed.
My take on Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post 9/11 World (featuring David Barsamian's interviews with Noam Chomsky)
Once Again "The Heretic" Takes the Empire to Task
As you read these words, I have little doubt that The Grand Inquisitor for the Bush regime is aching for a shot at The Empire’s ultimate heretic. Noam Chomsky has been a consistent intellectual thorn in the collective sides of the Machiavellians comprising the ruling elite in the United States for years. I recently had the pleasure of reading his latest, Imperial Ambitions: Conversation on the Post-9/11 World. Difficult as it is to imagine (if one has read Chomsky), I breezed through the nine chapters in about two hours. Throughout the 201 pages, interviewer David Barsamian poses probing questions, which serve to pry open the burgeoning treasure trove of knowledge and activate the analytical juggernaut comprising Avram Noam Chomsky's brain. With little prompting from Barsamian, Chomsky unleashes an onslaught of profound insights into how the world has changed since 9/11, and on America's role in shaping and effecting that change.
Glad he is only a "part-timer"
Once Again "The Heretic" Takes the Empire to Task
As you read these words, I have little doubt that The Grand Inquisitor for the Bush regime is aching for a shot at The Empire’s ultimate heretic. Noam Chomsky has been a consistent intellectual thorn in the collective sides of the Machiavellians comprising the ruling elite in the United States for years. I recently had the pleasure of reading his latest, Imperial Ambitions: Conversation on the Post-9/11 World. Difficult as it is to imagine (if one has read Chomsky), I breezed through the nine chapters in about two hours. Throughout the 201 pages, interviewer David Barsamian poses probing questions, which serve to pry open the burgeoning treasure trove of knowledge and activate the analytical juggernaut comprising Avram Noam Chomsky's brain. With little prompting from Barsamian, Chomsky unleashes an onslaught of profound insights into how the world has changed since 9/11, and on America's role in shaping and effecting that change.
Glad he is only a "part-timer"
BANGKOK, Thailand -- America wants to install "a puppet government" in Burma and seize an island in the Andaman Sea and a mountain near China so the Pentagon can build military bases and attack Asia, according to Burma's official media.
"If the [U.S.] power has a naval base on our Coco Kyun Island, it can launch a blitzkrieg against the eastern or the western hemisphere," the military regime's official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
Burma, mainland Southeast Asia's biggest country, is also known as Myanmar and has been ruled by its military since 1962.
"If the big nation [America] can deploy troops and missiles in the north of Myanmar, it can target and attack any specified country in and around the region," it said.
The Coco Islands are two dots just north of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, off southern Burma where the Bay of Bengal mingles with the Andaman Sea, at about the same latitude as Thailand's capital, Bangkok.
China has constructed a "signals intelligence" unit on the Coco Islands, according to the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists, which monitors intelligence facilities worldwide.
"If the [U.S.] power has a naval base on our Coco Kyun Island, it can launch a blitzkrieg against the eastern or the western hemisphere," the military regime's official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
Burma, mainland Southeast Asia's biggest country, is also known as Myanmar and has been ruled by its military since 1962.
"If the big nation [America] can deploy troops and missiles in the north of Myanmar, it can target and attack any specified country in and around the region," it said.
The Coco Islands are two dots just north of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, off southern Burma where the Bay of Bengal mingles with the Andaman Sea, at about the same latitude as Thailand's capital, Bangkok.
China has constructed a "signals intelligence" unit on the Coco Islands, according to the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists, which monitors intelligence facilities worldwide.
“It wouldn't surprise me if the election was rigged,” said a U.S. Army officer in Mosul who requested anonymity from Time and who worked on security arrangements for the poll with Iraqi security and election officials. “I don't even trust our election process.”
If democracy is supposed to provide legitimacy to government – what does a fraudulent election provide? The U.S. occupation, already suffering a host of problems – false reasons for the invasion, lack of international support, wanning support in the U.S., Abu Gharib prison scandals, the Fallujah attack, the killing of civilians, a strengthening insurgency, lack of support by former generals and foreign service officers, and generals on the ground saying the presence of U.S. troops are increasing the strength of the insurgency – now has a voting scandal on its hands.
If democracy is supposed to provide legitimacy to government – what does a fraudulent election provide? The U.S. occupation, already suffering a host of problems – false reasons for the invasion, lack of international support, wanning support in the U.S., Abu Gharib prison scandals, the Fallujah attack, the killing of civilians, a strengthening insurgency, lack of support by former generals and foreign service officers, and generals on the ground saying the presence of U.S. troops are increasing the strength of the insurgency – now has a voting scandal on its hands.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's Buddhist prime minister angrily told the Saudi Arabian-based Organization of Islamic Conference to "read the Koran" before criticizing his military crackdown in the south, where more than 1,000 people have died in the worst Islamist insurgency outside Iraq.
"I would like him to read the Koran which stated clearly that all Muslims, regardless where they live, must respect the law of that land," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Thursday (Oct. 20), in remarks aimed at OIC Secretary-General Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.
"This means the Koran wants Muslims to live peacefully with people of other religions," Thaksin said, referring to Islam's sacred text which believers regard as God's revelations.
Thaksin has been struggling to contain the rapidly escalating violence in southern Thailand, where most of this Southeast Asian nation's minority Muslims live.
"All Thai people are tired of the violence and want to see peace. I will do every by all means to end the violence," Thaksin said.
"Such criticisms contained in the Muslim organization's communique is considered most inappropriate."
"I would like him to read the Koran which stated clearly that all Muslims, regardless where they live, must respect the law of that land," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Thursday (Oct. 20), in remarks aimed at OIC Secretary-General Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.
"This means the Koran wants Muslims to live peacefully with people of other religions," Thaksin said, referring to Islam's sacred text which believers regard as God's revelations.
Thaksin has been struggling to contain the rapidly escalating violence in southern Thailand, where most of this Southeast Asian nation's minority Muslims live.
"All Thai people are tired of the violence and want to see peace. I will do every by all means to end the violence," Thaksin said.
"Such criticisms contained in the Muslim organization's communique is considered most inappropriate."
Historian Michael Foley said during times of war pacifists often get mugged. As a non-violent activist working to end the war in Iraq and the corporate war profiteering that comes with it, September 2005 has been the most surreal time of my life and I definitely feel like I got mugged by Australian Attorney General Phillip Ruddock and the Australian government.
After three lovely months of traveling through Australia and meeting people, one Wednesday afternoon during the second week of September I was called by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, or ASIO, and asked to come in for an interview. I asked if I was required to do so and the woman at the other end of the phone said “No, you are not obliged too.” I then asked if this would affect the remaining two weeks of my time in Australia and she said she couldn’t say. I should have listened with closer attention to that non-answer.
After three lovely months of traveling through Australia and meeting people, one Wednesday afternoon during the second week of September I was called by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, or ASIO, and asked to come in for an interview. I asked if I was required to do so and the woman at the other end of the phone said “No, you are not obliged too.” I then asked if this would affect the remaining two weeks of my time in Australia and she said she couldn’t say. I should have listened with closer attention to that non-answer.