World Prout Assembly

China upgrading n-missile launch site nearest to India

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:43:14 -0500

Less than a month after China's new nuclear submarine base came to light, latest satellite images show that Beijing is upgrading and extending its nuclear missile deployment site that is nearest to India. The images reveal that the Delingha missile base, located 1,900 km northeast of New Delhi in the central province of Qinghai, has recently been upgraded and new missile launch sites have been added at the military facility. --Manu Pubby

Six Bahá'í leaders arrested in Iran

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:38:15 -0500

Six Bahá'í leaders in Iran were arrested and taken to the notorious Evin prison yesterday in a sweep that is ominously similar to episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Bahá'í leaders were summarily rounded up and killed. It seems the six are held in the notorious Evin 209 section and are undergoing interrogations.

Fascism

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:29:25 -0500

The final and most dangerous form of economic exploitation is fascist exploitation. In order to canvass national support to justify their exploitation, the imperialists popularize the theory of nationalism. They portray their exploitation as rational and constitutional and based on the national interest. The British imperialists, in order to legitimize their exploitation, embraced nationalist theory. Following the example of the British, Mussolini of Italy and Hitler of Germany moved along the same path. When communist imperialism was established after the Second World War, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin propagated the concept of the Slavic supremacy. Likewise, the Chinese leader Mao Zedong built up Chinese superiority.

Shrii Prabhat R Sarkar

Rumsfeld: Why not another 9/11?

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:24:28 -0500

In a newly-released tape of a 2006 neocon luncheon meeting featuring former War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, attended by ex-military "message force multiplier" propaganda shills Lt. General Michael DeLong, David L. Grange, Donald W. Sheppard, James Marks, Rick Francona, Wayne Downing, Robert H. Scales and others, Rumsfeld declared that the American people lack "the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the ‘threats’" -- and need another 9/11.--Larry Chin

Egypt and Lebanon: Two Labour strikes, a Strategy, and One Reality

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:20:33 -0500

So the internationalization of the Lebanese crisis gathers momentum. But here Hizbollah is strong, the airport is in Hizbollah's hands. So where then will they site their air bridge if the incipient interventionism of the reactionary Arab countries does not want to risk an open confrontation with a group that has demonstrated its power? There is only one alternative, in the north of the country where NATO is proposing a base near Qleiat, close to Tripoli where the Nahr el Bared Palestinian refugee camp is sited and close, too, to the northern frontier with Syria. The base would accommodate a helicopter squadron and NATO special forces. It is ever more obvious that the presence of US warships, NATO plans and UNIFIL manoeuvres are all components moving in one direction : preparations for a new war with the aim of completely defeating the opposition forces and especially Hizbollah as a political and military actor not just in Lebanon but in the Middle East too.--Alberto Cruz

A Pattern of Mistreatment by Health Professionals: Involuntary Drugging of Detainees

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:50:17 -0500

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has been systematically administering psychotropic drugs to immigrants in the process of being deported as the Washington Post reported this week. Deportees who in the past had resisted deportation were injected with drugs, often a three drug "cocktail," in order to keep them pliant during deportation. These drugs included the powerful antipsychotic drug Haldol, as well as the antianxiety drug Ativan, and Cogentin, a drug used to treat the often severe Parkinsons illness like side effects of Haldol. These drugs were prescribed by psychiatrists and administered by specially selected nurse "medical escorts." The drugs were administered in extremely high doses, sometimes rendering the deportees unable to speak. It sometimes took deportees days or even weeks to get the drugs out of their system. --Stephen Soldz

Everybody Knows.

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:48:21 -0500

Cheney, Bush and their co-conspirators throughout the three branches of government must be removed. Indicted. Convicted. Imprisoned. Voting records of the 435 members of Congress and 33 Senators up for re-election in 2008 must be vetted, and those who do not reflect the will of the people must go. No exceptions. The remaining 17 Senators must either stand or fall on their voting records. If those who are guilty of the same breach of trust as their cohorts refuse to budge, they must be impeached and removed from office.--Sheila Samples

KENYA: Claims of torture by army and militia, as food shortages grip Mt Elgon

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:35:32 -0500

"The army intervention is proving to be counterproductive since it has actually participated in gross human rights violations in the area," KNCHR said. "Sources told the commission that the military torture members of the Sabaot community to death and those who survive are taken to the police station. Those who die are taken to Kamarang hill in Mt Elgon where it is alleged that they are buried en masse."--The criminal Kenyan government is not the only criminal here. This criminality is being fueled by a lack of food. The lack of food is being fueled by grain speculators in Chicago. The speculation is being fueled by our government that refuses to stop it. The government also just passed a farm bill that refuses to try and help the starving people of this world but instead gives money to agricultural corporations. The government engages in all this criminality because we allow it to; because we refuse to face our responsiblities; because we refuse to behave like human beings. When we next see a picture on TV of some starving babies lets not reach for our wallets to dole a handout to ease our conscience. Let us reach for some handcuffs and hand ourselves over to a criminal court for crimes against humanity. Let's indict/convict ourselves for not stopping our government from staving the world. Let our trial be filmed and broadcast in Kenya.--WPA

Israel’s twilight years

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:32:35 -0500

Palestinians, irrespective of their political affiliations, are not only reasserting the legal and moral status of their right to return to the homes and villages from which they were expelled at gunpoint, or otherwise made to flee 60 years ago, but are also emphasising to all who will listen, including their own leaders, that the right of return remains — and will always be — the heart, soul and centrepiece of the Palestinian issue.This week, Ahmed Qurei, head of the Palestinian negotiation team, revealed that he told visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently that the Palestinians would "resort to the one-state option if Israel refused to withdraw to the pre-June 1967 borders."--Khaled Amayreh

US soldier refuses to serve in 'illegal Iraq war'

Fri, 16 May 2008 19:43:29 -0500

Former army sergeant Kristofer Goldsmith told the landmark haering of "lawless murders, looting and the abuse of countless Iraqis." He spoke of the psychologically fragile men and women who return from Iraq to find little help or treatment offered from official circles.--Karin Zeitvogel --This is not Vietnam. In those days the world was content to hear confessions and condemnations of heinous criminality. That was the decline of the Pentagon Empire. We're in the free Fall stage now. The world will not tolerate mere expressions of remorse from politicians. It demands nothing less than Rumsfeld, Cheney et al at warcrimes trials in an international court. It demands nothing less than justice. Ignorance of International LAW is No Excuse. Equality of all governments under the law is the demand of our times. It is high time the ICC stopped becoming a colonial African Criminal Court and started prosecuting the Pentagon. Justice will be done. The outcry for Blair, Rumsfeld and Cheney to be intered in Milosevic's jail cell will not be silenced. --WPA

Twenty Nine Reasons People Need to Pull Their Heads Out of the Sand

Fri, 16 May 2008 19:15:24 -0500

Corporations and individuals now own patents on 20 human pathogens (Crichton, 2007). This allows the owner of the patents to halt research, prevent medical testing, and to withhold vital information from a patient or doctor. A corporation can charge any amount for tests related to that disease. The owner of the genome for Hepatitis C is paid millions of dollars by researchers to study the disease. Not surprisingly, researchers turn to studying other less expensive diseases. When SARS was spreading around the world, medical researchers were reticent to study it because of the patent concerns behind it. The inhibition of innovation and research makes the patenting of human genes particularly insidious. Corporations literally have the power to prevent the finding of cures for disease. Perhaps the most disturbing patent is that of U.S. patent 5,476,995 on Tracey the sheep. Tracey had human genes injected into her mammary glands to produce a certain protein. The alteration of her genetic make-up allows the two companies which own her, Pharmaceutical Proteins Ltd. and Bayer, to describe her as a human invention. This takes the concept of Orwellian doublespeak and turns it into the more accurate phrase: diabolical deception. - Wanda Woodward

Has the Battle for America Begun?

Fri, 16 May 2008 16:34:57 -0500

The aristocratic tradition is most notable in Great Britain , with the incredible wealth of the Windsor royal family and the concentric circles of power and influence which surround it. These circles are made up of a blend of the old nobility with the more recent additions of bankers, financiers, industrialists, government executives, media moguls, and intelligence operatives who continue to control much of the wealth of the world. The people who settled America fled that predatory aristocratic culture to find freedom. It is less well known how Tsarist Russia resisted Western European domination, but it is a fact that a longstanding alliance among the House of Romanoff, the Orthodox Church, the rural nobility, and the peasantry came together to create a culture that successfully kept that nation free from external control for most of its history. - Richard C. Cook

On the Importance of Reparations and Self-Determination

Fri, 16 May 2008 16:14:15 -0500

Without systemic change outside the Democratic and Republican Parties, the physical murders and judicial lynchings (as in the case of the murdered Sean Bell in New York City and so very many others) will continue unabated, unaffected by hypocritical and meaningless feel-good rhetoric. It is the people - we ourselves - who are the only ones we can or should count on to bring about serious and real economic, political, and social justice and change in this nation. It will not happen unless we make it happen. For the sake of the peoples of this nation and the entire planet, we must remain steadfast in our active commitment not only to the attainment of reparations and self determination but concomitantly to building and organizing for real justice and equality for all peoples, all our sisters and brothers throughout the world; for we are comrades and until we all have our human rights - none of us do. We are comrades in this most important struggle. We are struggling for fundamental systemic change, not meaningless cosmetic reform. Our ancestors are smiling upon us in this quest. The time is now. Onward then…the future beckons and the struggle continues… - Larry Pinkney

Utter Despair

Thu, 15 May 2008 23:37:42 -0500

The blood-sucking capitalists order the intellectuals whom they hire to write voluminous books which artfully distort the truth. They try to portray as mean and sub-human those who oppose the capitalists and demand the right to live. In order to keep their machinery of exploitation running, the capitalists produce deadly weapons with the help of mercenary intellectuals. On the orders of their capitalist overlords, intellectual scientists willingly or unwillingly take up the task of making weapons in their laboratories that have the potential to destroy human civilization. Although the intellectuals understand what is going on, they cannot do anything about it. They look up towards heaven, hoping to see the arrival of better days. They think, "When will the downfallen intellectuals, warriors and workers unitedly save human civilization from the all-devouring greed of the capitalists. When will people realize that it is not the desire of providence for some to exploit others." Due to the utter despair they feel, the subservient intellectuals gradually become consumed with remorse recalling how they themselves once exploited others.

Shrii Prabhat R Sarkar

Planned US Israeli Attack on Iran: Will there be a War against Iran?

Thu, 15 May 2008 23:23:05 -0500

Under NATO auspices, in liaison with the Pentagon, British, German, Turkish and French forces are slated to play a significant role in the case of an attack on Iran and Syria. We are at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. These war plans coincide with a parallel process of economic restructuring and a deepseated Worldwide economic depression. War and globalization are intimately related processes. The militarisation of the Middle East and Central Asia supports the extension of the global "free market" system into new frontiers.
In turn, the war has heightened the economic crisis. The civilian economy is collapsing, overshadowed and undermined by the dynamic growth of the military industrial complex, which in a very real sense produces "weapons of mass destruction. In turn, the concurrent hikes in the price of crude oil, in the price of basic food staples, through speculative activities on major commodity exchanges have contributed to impoverishing millions of people.--Michel Chossudovsky