Political News Roundup

Back by popular demand...

• Bob Geldof wants a million protesters to march on G8 summit in Edinburgh.
• Brown backs G8 march.
• From Live 8 to G8: Only Results Matter.
• Audit of the Chinese factories making wristbands which say "MakePovertyHistory", for a campaign against world poverty, found to have illegal slave labour conditions. Charities, with mud on their faces, try to explain.
• Millions support it but what exactly is 'Making Poverty History'?
• The full text of Nelson Mandela's speech in London's Trafalgar Square for the campaign to end poverty in the developing world.
• Bolivia on the brink as gas protests block capital.
• 50,000 Bolivians protest in La Paz.
• Bolivia's National Police decide, by consensus, not to repress the people …and have been internally reprimanded by the government.
• Seeking a change in Africa.
• Launched by the U.N. 6 weeks ago, video game to teach children about global hunger surpasses expectations by reaching more than one million players in 40 countries.
• Retailers are using U.S. internet shoppers to fix prices.
• A life with the demons: more than just a review of Mao: The Unknown Story. Amazon US & UK.
• Curse of gold has fuelled slaughter and rape in Congo.
• Attempted blackmail regarding International Court prompts Kenya to tell U.S. where it can shove it's military aid money.
• Iraq Kill Rate Analysis -- looks like it's for all groups except civilians.
• Gold mine sparks battle in Peru.
• Hundreds of thousands march in Mexico City in support of mayor being attacked by political parties for allowing access road to hospital.
• Haiti faces explosive situation brought on by political factions, elements of the business elite, drug-traffickers and other criminal organisations who have a "clear interest in delaying the elections, and in destabilisation".
• The Uses of Haiti.
• In Brazil, 12,000 march to force President to keep promises on agrarian reform programme.
• Dozens of Officials Nabbed as Brazil Cracks Down on Illegal Logging.
• The New Voice of the Venezuelan People: An Interview with the Aporrea.org Collective.
• Bloggers take on European elites.
• Indians vow to continue protest against Coca-Cola plant which dries up water supply and emits toxic sludge. Pepsi facing similar protests.
• Island farmers whose land was ruined by tsunami's salt water refuse government's "joke compensation" of $5 or less per person. Charity champion received U.S. equivalent of 5 cents for damaged coconut farm.
• More than 10,000 have endured forced evictions, burned homes, beatings, and arrests in Zimbabwe under government's plan to "drive out the rubbish."
• Bin Ladens lair.
• Where's Osama? Bush Doesn't Care. Do We?
• Former CIA agent says boss told him to "Capture Bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box on dry ice." For other al-Qaeda leaders, the CIA's counter-terrorism chief said, "I want their heads up on pikes."
• Party Games for Terrorists.
• War Made Easy: From Vietnam to Iraq.
• In Defense of San Antonio's Narco News Journalist, Bill Conroy.
• Bill Conroy takes a closer look at Narco-Capitalism on U.S.-Mexico border.
• CAFTA: Adios Made-in-the-USA?
• Activist-led rebellion making progress on defeating CAFTA.
• Deep Throat Comes Forward, But Self-Congratulating Washington Post Still Sucks.
• CNN's founder, Ted Turner, accuses the news channel of dumbing down by devoting too much airtime to what he termed "pervert of the day" at the expense of serious news.
• Fox News Admits Bias! London bureau chief blurts out the political slant.
• Part Medici, part venture capitalist, the John M. Olin Foundation has spent three decades financing the intellectual rise of the right. Now the foundation is closing its doors.
• War is hell: Try as it might, TV news can't change awful reality.
• Journalist explains decision to work for alternative news media.
• American Israeli spies? Bloggers discuss espionage scandal involving a pro-Israeli lobbying group.
• America's Religious Right - Saints or Subversives?
  Part 1: The Lure of Christian Nationalism.
  Part2: Hang Ten and Fight!
  Part3: A Deadly Culture of Life.
  Part 4: Pie in the Sky.
  Part 5: The Ayatollah of Holy Rollers.
• Purgatory without end: Why is America still so prone to wars of religion?
• CIA pays anthropology students at universities $50,000 a year to gather info during fieldwork in foreign countries.
• What Bush is saying when he's talking. Maybe the one thing we all agree on is the need for an interpreter.
• The Darkness in America.
• Two Israeli soldiers claim they were ordered to carry out a series of revenge attacks on Palestinian policemen after the killing of six soldiers by militants.
• Israel troops admit 'eye for eye' killings.
• First the boat broke down. Then the smugglers taking the 88 South Americans to the United States fled on another boat, taking the navigational aids with them. Then the old, wooden boat started to sink, and the food and water ran dry. Now rescued, the would-be immigrants who paid $3000 each are being sent back where they came from. Talk about bad luck.
• British bank rebuked over secret Liberian diamond deal.
• Mob Rule: The west may believe it is building a safer world by opening up markets, imposing sanctions and intervening in conflicts. In reality it is creating a gangsters' paradise.
• Serbian army commander who led the bombing of Sarajevo and has been accused of helping one of Europe's most notorious war criminals escape capture received £300,000 in British aid money.
• Efforts to reduce suffering of lab animals are hampered by poor funding and a reluctance by scientists to share experimental data.
• Seismic testing, which involves detonating sound-wave explosions to locate oil and gas, to take place on national park property designated as wilderness with endangered species.
• U.N. Training Iraqis in Jordan to Measure Radiation from Depleted Uranium.
• Iraq's environmental problems among the world's worst.
• Excerpts from testimonies at Guantanamo.
• On the other hand: Al Qaeda training manual says that when captured or facing trial, "brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security."
• Torture: The Case Against, and Prescription For. Bush may think the allegations are 'absurd' but the debate on the Right isn't whether torture is happening at Gitmo -- it's over whether they care.
• Independent journalist says 60,000 Iraqis have "Disappeared" into U.S. Camps.
• WFP says 3.5 million people - more than half the population - now hungry in Darfur.
• U.N. says Weapons Equipment Missing in Iraq.
• Hip-Hop voter registration campaigns did work. Talk about bringing you alternative media news...
• Saudi legislators in fierce controversy over ban on women drivers.
• Russia threatens retaliatory steps if any country deploys weapons in space.
• Supreme Court Ruling could unintentionally open an interesting can of worms for corporations.

Thanks to Cernig and Unidentified Contributor

Political Quote of the Day

"Poverty is still killing 50,000 Africans a day. If deaths on such a scale were happening in Europe, these presidents and prime ministers out on the lush Gleneagles golf course would have solved the problem between the first and second holes."

Bob Geldof