"Like the European colonization of America, the colonization of Palestine began with the imperial mindset that particularly flourished in the 19th century. We give Israel billions of dollars annually in aid, weapons and political support to underwrite those 19th-century colonial practices for which, surely, most 21st century Americans and Europeans are ashamed, however much they may want to forget....We cannot return to colonial America to undo the degradation of our own native peoples. But we can act to make sure ethnic cleansing doesn't continue in Palestine, now, in our names and with our money."

"Could the hypothesis be true that Muslims, despite their alleged backwardness, had access to TV news, print media and the Internet and might've accidentally run across hundreds of photos of physically humiliated and sexually abused Iraqi prisoners? Could it be possible that they learned of harrowing testimonies of former prisoners at Guantanamo detailing what numerous human rights groups unhesitatingly described as 'war crimes?'"

More spammers are setting up shop in less-developed countries as authorities and Internet service providers in the United States and Europe crack down on them. As ISP's in developing nations harbor more spammers, those providers increasingly land on international "block lists." That jams up e-mail services for their customers--spammers and regular Web users alike.

In countries with a single ISP providing e-mail services, landing on a block list can cut the entire country off from e-mail access. That's just what happened in Costa Rica a few years ago, when antispam campaign group Spamhaus blocked e-mail from the country for two whole days.

"It has arrived early; it's bigger than ever and it promises a summer of death and destruction. The annual 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico - starved of oxygen, and thus killing fish and underwater vegetation - has appeared earlier than usual this year....This is just one sign of a rapidly growing crisis. The number of similar dead zones in the world's seas has doubled every decade since 1960, as a result of increasing pollution."

"It happened quite by accident, as most revelations do. And it is seen by most of the world as the most revolting of the American/Israeli atrocities in the past few years, although it's hard to prioritize that claim because of the level and
frequency of barbaric acts that are committed on a regular basis by those affluent
automatons who call themselves the good guys....Yet everyone but the comatose American populace - blinded by its Orwellian media and stupefied by its demented diet of physical and mental poisons - can see it."

Washington -- It's not news that China has become trade enemy No. 1 in

Washington.

But the harsh anti-China rhetoric on the home front is really just a

sideshow to a global race for power, influence and resources.

The Bush administration has slapped tariffs on imported Chinese clothes and

is threatening further sanctions if China doesn't inflate its currency in

the next few months. An angry U.S. Congress is vowing much worse -- a

blanket 30-per-cent tariff on the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of

Chinese goods imported into the United States every year.

Two Australian academics have caused outrage by advocating torture. In an article to be published in the University of San Francisco's Law Review Journal in July, the Law School head and a colleague argue for legalized torture of terrorist suspects.

BMJ 2005;330:1106 (14 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7500.1106-a News

Jeanne Lenzer New York

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/

Legislation aimed at ending the close relationship between the US Food and Drug Administration and the drug industry was introduced last week in the House of Representatives by Congressman Maurice Hinchey (Democrat) of New York.

The Food and Drug Administration Improvement Act 2005 has been endorsed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, DC, a non-profit education and advocacy organisation. Merrill Goozner, director of the centre's integrity in science project, said it was "exactly what is needed to restore public confidence in the FDA."

"The 'Declaration of Brasilia' to be endorsed this Wednesday calls for close political and economic ties between South America and the Arab world; demands that Israel disband its settlements in the West Bank, including 'those in East Jerusalem', and retreat to its borders before 1967; criticizes US 'unilateral economic sanctions against Syria', which violates principles of international law; and forcefully condemns terrorism. Israel is also implicitly criticized for holding an undeclared nuclear arsenal. The declaration also calls for a global conference to define the meaning of terrorism, and defends peoples' rights to 'resist foreign occupation in accordance with the principle of international legality and in compliance with international humanitarian law'."

"Two years after 'Mission Accomplished', whatever moral stature the United States could claim at the end of its invasion of Iraq has long ago been squandered in the torture and abuse and deaths at Abu Ghraib. That the symbol of Saddam Hussein's brutality should have been turned by his own enemies into the symbol of their own brutality is a singularly ironic epitaph for the whole Iraq adventure. We have all been contaminated by the cruelty of the interrogators and the guards and prison commanders....But this is not only about Abu Ghraib. There are clear and proven connections now between the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the cruelty at the Americans' Bagram prison in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay."

"The secretary general of Reporters
without Borders acknowledges that
his organization is financed by the
United States."

"Erik Saar, an Arabic speaker who was a translator in interrogation sessions, has produced a searing first-hand account of working at Guantnamo (Bay). It will prove a damaging blow to a White House still struggling to recover from the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

In an exclusive interview, Saar told The Observer that prisoners were physically assaulted by 'snatch squads' and subjected to sexual interrogation techniques and that the Geneva Conventions were deliberately ignored by the US military."

"My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century
escaped slave. Because of government persecution,
I was left with no other choice than to flee from the
political repression, racism and violence that
dominate the US government's policy towards people
of color. I am an ex-political prisoner, and I have been
living in exile in Cuba since 1984."

"Challenging the United States to make good on its pledge to hunt down terrorists, Venezuela on Thursday formally requested the extradition of a radical Cuban exile [Luis Posada Carriles] who is reportedly hiding in Florida and is wanted here in connection with an airline bombing that killed 73 people."

"Posada is a Bay of Pigs veteran and collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency in numerous attempts to depose Cuban President Fidel Castro. He is wanted in Venezuela in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner en route from Caracas to Havana."

"The inquiry has cast a cloud over the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which employed the two men who are said to have received the classified information from Mr. Franklin. The group, also known as AIPAC, has close ties to senior policymakers in the Bush administration, among them Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to appear later this month at the group's annual meeting.

The investigation has proven awkward as well for a group of conservative Republicans, who held high-level civilian jobs at the Pentagon during President Bush's first term and the buildup toward the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and who were also close to AIPAC."