47, an environmental scientist, Italian-American, married, 2 sons, originally a Catholic from Philly, now a Taoist ecophilosopher in the South due to job transfer. Enjoy jazz, hockey, good food and hikes in the woods.
China sets ambitious environmental goals: The eleventh economic plan, neatly rubber stamped by the National People’s congress this month, makes some incredibly ambitious environmental promises. China will cut energy use by a fifth over the next five years – even while the economy continues to grow at a blistering pace. Industrial pollution will fall by a tenth, and water consumption by factories down by almost a third. Even disposable chopsticks will be taxed, to safeguard the 1.3 million cubic metres of Chinese timber lost to chopstick production every year. Even if performance fails to meet all of these expectations, at least the ship is turning in the right direction. And speaking of ships, the environmental group Greenpeace said on Tuesday it had helped authorities in Guinea arrest a Chinese vessel fishing illegally off its coast as part of a crackdown on “pirate” fishermen plundering West African waters. And Greenpeace also charged yesterday, in a report issued in Beijing, that China lies at the heart of a global trade plundering endangered rainforests in Southeast Asia to supply Europe and the United States. Doesn’t look like Greenpeace will be invited to dinner very soon…
Loneliness is a major risk factor in increasing blood pressure in older Americans, and could increase the risk of death from stroke and heart disease, new research at the University of Chicago shows. Scholars found that lonely people have blood pressure readings that are as much as 30 points higher than in non-lonely people, even when other factors such as depressive symptoms or perceived stress are taken into account.
USA EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson was the featured guest at an intimate Denver fundraiser for a Republican congressional candidate attended by representatives of industries regulated by his agency. That’s not news. But the Denver Post is shocked, shocked!
British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday backed an Asia-Pacific climate partnership that includes India, China and the United States, saying it was not aimed at undermining the Kyoto protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. <snark>He then launched into a spirited attack of Saddam’s links to al Qaida and his weapons of mass destruction program.</snark> If you think that’s snarky, go check out Art Buchwald’s piece on Bush and climate change today in the Washington Post… And speaking of people “in the dark,” don’t forget to go watch footage of today’s total solar eclipse…
ZVECAN, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) – Serbs in northern Kosovo warned the United Nations on Wednesday the province would split in two if the Albanian majority clinches independence in talks this year.
“Serbs are not in favour of partition but it will come to that if the international community accepts the Albanian ultimatum and Kosovo becomes independent,” Serb mayor Slavisa Ristic told reporters after meeting U.N. envoy Albert Rohan in the northern town of Zvecan.
Rohan is the Austrian deputy to Martti Ahtisaari, who is leading negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians in Vienna on the fate of the disputed province, run by the United Nations since the 1998-99 war.
The major powers setting international policy on Kosovo have ruled out partition, but as the West makes increasingly clear its preference for independence, the 100,000 remaining Serbs are pushing to distance themselves as far as possible from the Albanian-dominated authorities in the capital Pristina.
(more)
KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban insurgents attacked a military base in Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing a U.S. and a Canadian soldier while 32 of the attackers were also killed, the U.S. military said.
Violence has intensified in Afghanistan in recent months and the Taliban have vowed to launch a spring offensive as part of their campaign to oust foreign forces and the Western-backed government.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the base in the southern province of Helmand and said their spring offensive had begun.
“In continuing fighting in Helmand Province, coalition forces killed 20 insurgents and destroyed two Taliban headquarters buildings,” the U.S. military said in a statement.
The U.S. military said 12 Taliban were killed in the initial attack and U.S.-led forces, backed by aircraft, later defeated a large Taliban force that was attempting to escape.
U.S.-led forces also captured two Taliban headquarters buildings and seized large caches of munitions, including bomb-making material, which they blew up, the U.S. military said.
It was not immediately clear if the violence was linked to Afghanistan’s drug trade. Helmand is Afghanistan’s main opium poppy-growing region and there have been fears of widespread violence since an aggressive poppy eradication campaign started in recent weeks.
Helmand’s rugged mountains are also popular hiding places for Taliban rebels, many of whom are believed to slip back and forth across the province’s largely unguarded border with Pakistan.
[Malalai] Joya is one of 68 women in Afghanistan’s recently elected bicameral Parliament. She has endeared herself to millions of Afghans because of her candor — a trait that has earned her the title “the most famous woman in Afghanistan;” it also has made her a target of Afghan power brokers.
However, in Kabul the eager delegate was introduced to a different kind of democracy building — one with self-interested international players, rampant corruption and an Afghan government made up of a hodgepodge of former warlords and commanders. Joya found herself facing the post-Taliban government’s central quagmire: how to exclude commanders who successfully fought off the Soviet Army but later turned on one another, ravaging the capital city, displacing millions and killing thousands of innocent people.
“I couldn’t take watching these warlords in the new government of Afghanistan, so on the first day of the assembly I stood up and asked the constitutional commission why these criminals were a part of the future of the country and not in an international court, being tried for war crimes.”
[snip]
[S]he is still not satisfied. Despite the election of 67 other women to Parliament and the thousands of girls back in school, Joya insists that the lives of Afghan women haven’t changed much with the formation of the Karzai government.
“The situation has changed for only 1 percent of Afghan women; 99 percent still live under oppression, lawlessness and poor health conditions,” she says.
Disgraced US lobbyist Jack Abramoff is due to be sentenced in Miami on charges of conspiracy and wire fraud.
Abramoff – who had close links to top Republicans – has pleaded guilty to the charges, which relate to the purchase of a fleet of casino boats.
In a separate case, he has admitted to tax evasion, defrauding his clients and conspiring to bribe public officials.
A federal inquiry into his activities is said to be focusing on his dealings with up to 20 politicians in Congress.
Disgraced former US lobbyist Jack Abramoff has been jailed for nearly six years for conspiracy and fraud.
Abramoff – who had close links to top Republicans – had pleaded guilty to the charge, which relates to the purchase of a fleet of casino boats in 2000.
(snip)
Abramoff and his former business partner – Adam Kidan – were accused of faking a wire transfer of $23m (£13m) to obtain loans for the purchase of SunCruz.
The sentence was the minimum under his plea agreement in the case.
Kidan was also sentenced to 70 months in jail. Both were also ordered to pay $21.7m in restitution.
“The sentences were the minimum under their plea agreement in the case.
Abramoff, 47, and Adam Kidan, 41, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud.
They won’t start their for at least 90 days so they can continue cooperating in a Washington corruption investigation and a Florida probe into the murder of Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis, owner of the SunCruz Casinos fleet they bought.”
Liberia’s exiled former leader Charles Taylor has been caught on the Cameroon border in north-eastern Nigeria, a Nigerian police official has said. Mr Taylor’s disappearance from his villa in Calabar in southern Nigeria came after Nigeria said Liberia was free to “take Taylor into custody”.
Mr Taylor was indicted on 17 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, for backing Sierra Leone’s rebels.
Charles Taylor was captured by security forces in the far northeastern border town of Gamboru, in Borno State, nearly 600 miles from the villa in southern Calabar from which he reportedly disappeared Monday night, Information Minister Frank Nweke said in a statement. He was trying to cross the border into Cameroon.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, on a visit to the White House, gave few details about Taylor’s arrest except to say he was picked up in a car with his wife and taken to a regional state capital.
A Nigerian police official said Taylor was in a vehicle with his son, an aide and a local guide when arrested. They also were carrying two 110-pound sacks filled with U.S. and European currency, Alhaji Mohammed Aminu Bello said.
Taylor and his son were taken into custody while the others were let go, Bello said.
A plane carrying Taylor left from Maiduguri, capital of northwestern Borno state, for Liberia, a senior police official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
In Liberia, hundreds of U.N. troops patrolled inside the main airport near the capital, Monrovia. Dozens of elite Irish troops in armored personnel carriers parked their vehicles on the airstrip.
ROME, Italy (AP) March 29 — The man who faced the death penalty after converting from Islam to Christianity left Afghanistan, and Italy said it granted him asylum and expected him to arrive “soon.”
Abdul Rahman, 41, left Afghanistan early in the day, an official closely connected to the case said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
The official did not know where Rahman was flying, but Italy’s government said it expected him to arrive there perhaps within the day.
Afghanistan's parliament said that a Christian who avoided the death penalty for converting from Islam should not be allowed to escape the country, as the man looked to Europe for asylum. AFP/Shah Marai
We knew it would be only a matter of time. Bush is king in DC, why not Baghdad.
imho, Bush has removed the facade for the Iraq war as bringing ‘freedom and democracy’ to the Iraqi people. And, he has cited, over and over, that freedom is on the march pointing to the ‘fair and free elections’ since the invasion; most notably December 15th.
Now he has decided to thwart the results. Here’s his latest to the majority Shiites who won the December 15th polls. Nothing quite like having the majority of the population saying out loud you’ve twice betrayed them.
Coverage by Patrick Cockburn in the Independent UK
[..]Mr Bush has written to the Shi’ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shi’ite Alliance asking him to nominate somebody else for the post. ” The Americans are very firm about this,” said a senior official. ” They don’t want Jaafari at any price.”
Friction between the Americans and the Shia, who make up 60 per cent of Iraq’s 27 million population, escalated sharply after at least 16 Shi’ites were killed in the al-Mustafa mosque by Iraqi and American Special Forces on Sunday night. Many Shia believe that the US was shocked by, and is not ready to accept, the success of the Shia Alliance in the election on 15 December. [..]
(emphasis added)
Knight Ridder has Scottie denying Bush’s letter. But the story is picked up by NYT via Thinkprogress who recalls Bush’s doublespeak,
[..]We want the Iraqis to make that selection, of course. They are the ones who got elected by the people. They’re the ones who must form the government.
New York Times, today:
“Mr. Khalilzad said Mr. Bush `doesn’t want, doesn’t support, doesn’t accept’ Mr. Jaafari as the next prime minister, according to Mr. Taki,[..]
Do you suppose we’re looking for an invite to depart? Remember when it was said we’d leave if we’re ask to? That invitation could be just in time for this November midterms.
link
(Link is to Washington Post article, not sure if it is behind free subscription.)
Thousands of Iraqis Flee to Avoid Spread Of Violence
Fear, Threats Push Muslim Sects Apart
BAGHDAD, March 28 — Sectarian violence has displaced more than 25,000 Iraqis since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine, a U.N.-affiliated agency said Tuesday, and shelters and tent cities are springing up across central and southern Iraq to house homeless Sunni and Shiite families.
The flight is continuing, according to the International Organization for Migration, which works closely with the United Nations and other groups. The result has been a population exchange as Sunni and Shiite families flee mixed communities for the safety of areas where their own sects predominate.
[snip]
During Hussein’s rule, forced transfers of ethnic group members left close to 1 million Iraqis internally displaced, and the country has experienced large flows of displaced people since the U.S.-led invasion, said Graber, the agency official. The November 2004 U.S. offensive in Fallujah, for example, sent more than 40,000 residents fleeing the city, she said.
Since the Samarra bombing, threats or killings have spurred many families to flee their homes with nothing, not even their ration cards, Graber said. “And there’s no certainty as to when it will be safe again to return, when they can return without their sons getting killed,” she said.
Both Shiite and Sunni families make up the displaced, the immigration agency’s figures show.
A disturbing trend noticeable in Iraq for quite some time now is that each aggressive Israeli military operation in the occupied territories results in a corresponding increase in the number of attacks on US forces in Iraq. One of the first instances of this was the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in March 2004 and the reaction it set off across Shia and Sunni, ultimately spiraling into the siege and devastation of Fallujah. Fallujah is but one example one may use to demonstrate how the ongoing use of heavy handed tactics by the US-Israel alliance is proving to be as suicidal as it is homicidal. US troops in Iraq and Israeli civilians in their homes can bear testimony to this, as they are the ones who bear the brunt. Not to mention the collateral damage in Iraq. {snip}
. . . it was reported that Israeli counter-insurgency specialists were sent to Fort Bragg to teach American special forces how to control an unruly Iraqi population. Also during December 2003, it was reported that “Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources said on Monday,” and “The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the home of US special forces, and according to two sources, Israeli military “consultants” have also visited Iraq. US forces in Iraq’s Sunni triangle have already begun to use tactics that echo Israeli operations in the occupied territories, sealing off centers of resistance with razor wire and razing buildings from where attacks have been launched against US troops.”
Iraqis are all too aware of this, and I even saw this played out on the ground in Samarra as far back as December 2003. I interviewed a family whose home was demolished by military bulldozers after a roadside bomb detonated near it hit a passing US patrol. This, coupled with collective punishment of the city by cuts in electricity, water and medical aid, had everyone infuriated, and continues to do so today as these policies gain in scale, frequency and intensity.
These collective punishment tactics have been imposed, to one degree or another, in other cities in Iraq, such as Fallujah, Abu Hishma, Siniyah, Ramadi, areas of Baghdad, Balad and Baquba, to name just a few. Iraqis see the collective punishment meted out by Israeli military forces in Palestinian neighborhoods in the occupied territories via Arab satellite television networks, and are horrified to witness the very same tactics being applied on their soil.
Another destructive link highlighting the intertwined policies of the two countries is Abu Ghraib . . . Karpinski told the BBC she’d met a man who told her he was from Israel while she was visiting an intelligence center with a senior US general . . . I’ve spoken with several Iraqis who had been tortured in various military detention facilities throughout Iraq. Several of them testified to being interrogated by Israeli Mossad (an Israeli intelligence agency).
Another event that sent shock-waves throughout Iraq was the news from December 2004 that detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were tortured and, according to FBI agents, one detainee was wrapped in an Israeli flag and subjected to extremely loud music in order to shake his resistance to his interrogation.
prestigious enough to do justice to Dahr’s work. Unless we are all exploded, one day, there will doubtless be efforts to acknowledge and pay tribute to him, but it is hard to imagine anything worthy of the courage and sacrifice of this one human being, in order to inform anyone who will listen of the reality of man’s inhumanity to his brothers and sisters.
Those who pray, please keep him in your prayers, for his safety, and that of his loved ones, and a long, prosperous and happy life.
Flashpoints broadcast a good snippet of his talk (along with Jeremey Schaill — another journalist to keep one’s eyes peeled for their dispatches) in Sacramento a few weeks ago. Worth a listen!
Here’s the blurb for the show:
Today on Flashpoints: Patrick Cockburn of the Independent of London reports from Kurdistan on the unraveling into civil war in US-occupied Iraq; also, Israelis vote for a new parliamentary government as occupation policies expand on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza; excerpts from a talk by Flashpoints special correspondent Dahr Jamail and investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill on the story that the corporate media won’t tell and the bi-partisan nature of empire in this country; and the Knight Report.
Opening with DynCorp International in Kabul, Afghanistan
DynCorp International currently has an opening for an International Advisor. The successful candidate will work on our Poppy Elimination Program operating out of Kabul, Afghanistan. This program will be in conjunction with the US Dept. of State and Afghanistan’s MOI in ongoing efforts to eradicate illegal opium poppy cultivation throughout the country.
The program will deploy teams to 7 key opium-producing provinces. The International Advisor will assist their respective province in the ongoing information campaign to dissuade farmers from planting and subsequently cultivating poppy. The employee must be able to empower the governor and his staff so that he plays an active role in the elimination of poppy cultivation in his province.
A proposal to make key lime pie the official state pie has passed the House Tourism Committee.
State Representative Mitch Needelman thinks key limes would best represent Florida since the state has such a large citrus industry.
But lawmakers from other areas of the state think otherwise. Some legislators in the northern part of the state argued that pecan pie should be the official state pie, while some in the central part of the state pushed for strawberry pie…
and now it looks like the chicken pot pie has entered into the race also. So we got our work cut out us but we’re looking forward for victory,” he said.
His bill passed the committee by a 7-0 vote Tuesday afternoon. It has one more committee vote in the House.
A similar bill up for a vote before the full Senate.
China sets ambitious environmental goals: The eleventh economic plan, neatly rubber stamped by the National People’s congress this month, makes some incredibly ambitious environmental promises. China will cut energy use by a fifth over the next five years – even while the economy continues to grow at a blistering pace. Industrial pollution will fall by a tenth, and water consumption by factories down by almost a third. Even disposable chopsticks will be taxed, to safeguard the 1.3 million cubic metres of Chinese timber lost to chopstick production every year. Even if performance fails to meet all of these expectations, at least the ship is turning in the right direction. And speaking of ships, the environmental group Greenpeace said on Tuesday it had helped authorities in Guinea arrest a Chinese vessel fishing illegally off its coast as part of a crackdown on “pirate” fishermen plundering West African waters. And Greenpeace also charged yesterday, in a report issued in Beijing, that China lies at the heart of a global trade plundering endangered rainforests in Southeast Asia to supply Europe and the United States. Doesn’t look like Greenpeace will be invited to dinner very soon…
Loneliness is a major risk factor in increasing blood pressure in older Americans, and could increase the risk of death from stroke and heart disease, new research at the University of Chicago shows. Scholars found that lonely people have blood pressure readings that are as much as 30 points higher than in non-lonely people, even when other factors such as depressive symptoms or perceived stress are taken into account.
USA EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson was the featured guest at an intimate Denver fundraiser for a Republican congressional candidate attended by representatives of industries regulated by his agency. That’s not news. But the Denver Post is shocked, shocked!
In Brazil, drivers can fill up their cars with just about any imaginable fuel — except plain old gasoline. This year, Brazil will achieve energy independence, USA Today reports.
A major initiative has been launched to conserve the fragile wildlife of the islands of the Pacific. It includes a commitment to protect nearly a third of coastal waters and a fifth of the land area of Micronesia, in the third largest marine reserve in the world. The announcement was made at the UN conference on protection of the world’s biodiversity, in Curitiba, Brazil.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday backed an Asia-Pacific climate partnership that includes India, China and the United States, saying it was not aimed at undermining the Kyoto protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. <snark>He then launched into a spirited attack of Saddam’s links to al Qaida and his weapons of mass destruction program.</snark> If you think that’s snarky, go check out Art Buchwald’s piece on Bush and climate change today in the Washington Post… And speaking of people “in the dark,” don’t forget to go watch footage of today’s total solar eclipse…
Serbs warn of partition if Kosovo wins statehood
Taliban says Afghan offensive is on, 22 dead
.
Published earlier today ::
It was not immediately clear if the violence was linked to Afghanistan’s drug trade. Helmand is Afghanistan’s main opium poppy-growing region and there have been fears of widespread violence since an aggressive poppy eradication campaign started in recent weeks.
Helmand’s rugged mountains are also popular hiding places for Taliban rebels, many of whom are believed to slip back and forth across the province’s largely unguarded border with Pakistan.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Full Article
Lobbyist Abramoff awaits sentence
Lobbyist Abramoff gets 70 months
So are they actually putting him in jail, or waiting until after he’s sentenced on the other charges? It’s not clear from article, is it?
He made a plea, so there is no appeal.
However, at the CNN site this is stated:
“The sentences were the minimum under their plea agreement in the case.
Abramoff, 47, and Adam Kidan, 41, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud.
They won’t start their for at least 90 days so they can continue cooperating in a Washington corruption investigation and a Florida probe into the murder of Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis, owner of the SunCruz Casinos fleet they bought.”
So, it’s not straight to the slammer.
Five years, 10 months as cursor.org points to his getting a break on The Hill – payback in gaming bill.
.
Liberia’s exiled former leader Charles Taylor has been caught on the Cameroon border in north-eastern Nigeria, a Nigerian police official has said. Mr Taylor’s disappearance from his villa in Calabar in southern Nigeria came after Nigeria said Liberia was free to “take Taylor into custody”.
Mr Taylor was indicted on 17 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, for backing Sierra Leone’s rebels.
Extradition By Nigerian Presidential Plane
Charles Taylor was captured by security forces in the far northeastern border town of Gamboru, in Borno State, nearly 600 miles from the villa in southern Calabar from which he reportedly disappeared Monday night, Information Minister Frank Nweke said in a statement. He was trying to cross the border into Cameroon.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, on a visit to the White House, gave few details about Taylor’s arrest except to say he was picked up in a car with his wife and taken to a regional state capital.
A Nigerian police official said Taylor was in a vehicle with his son, an aide and a local guide when arrested. They also were carrying two 110-pound sacks filled with U.S. and European currency, Alhaji Mohammed Aminu Bello said.
Taylor and his son were taken into custody while the others were let go, Bello said.
A plane carrying Taylor left from Maiduguri, capital of northwestern Borno state, for Liberia, a senior police official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
In Liberia, hundreds of U.N. troops patrolled inside the main airport near the capital, Monrovia. Dozens of elite Irish troops in armored personnel carriers parked their vehicles on the airstrip.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
.
ROME, Italy (AP) March 29 — The man who faced the death penalty after converting from Islam to Christianity left Afghanistan, and Italy said it granted him asylum and expected him to arrive “soon.”
Abdul Rahman, 41, left Afghanistan early in the day, an official closely connected to the case said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
The official did not know where Rahman was flying, but Italy’s government said it expected him to arrive there perhaps within the day.
● Afghan MPs say asylum-seeking Christian must not escape
Afghanistan's parliament said that a Christian who avoided the death penalty for converting from Islam should not be allowed to escape the country, as the man looked to Europe for asylum. AFP/Shah MaraiSee my diary ::
Afghan Christian Convert Seeks Political Asylum and Disappears
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
We knew it would be only a matter of time. Bush is king in DC, why not Baghdad.
imho, Bush has removed the facade for the Iraq war as bringing ‘freedom and democracy’ to the Iraqi people. And, he has cited, over and over, that freedom is on the march pointing to the ‘fair and free elections’ since the invasion; most notably December 15th.
Now he has decided to thwart the results. Here’s his latest to the majority Shiites who won the December 15th polls. Nothing quite like having the majority of the population saying out loud you’ve twice betrayed them.
Coverage by Patrick Cockburn in the Independent UK
Americans’ call for removal of Iraqi PM threatens rift with Shias
Knight Ridder has Scottie denying Bush’s letter. But the story is picked up by NYT via Thinkprogress who recalls Bush’s doublespeak,
Bush, the Iraqi Kingmaker
Do you suppose we’re looking for an invite to depart? Remember when it was said we’d leave if we’re ask to? That invitation could be just in time for this November midterms.
link
(Link is to Washington Post article, not sure if it is behind free subscription.)
Fear, Threats Push Muslim Sects Apart
BAGHDAD, March 28 — Sectarian violence has displaced more than 25,000 Iraqis since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine, a U.N.-affiliated agency said Tuesday, and shelters and tent cities are springing up across central and southern Iraq to house homeless Sunni and Shiite families.
The flight is continuing, according to the International Organization for Migration, which works closely with the United Nations and other groups. The result has been a population exchange as Sunni and Shiite families flee mixed communities for the safety of areas where their own sects predominate.
[snip]
During Hussein’s rule, forced transfers of ethnic group members left close to 1 million Iraqis internally displaced, and the country has experienced large flows of displaced people since the U.S.-led invasion, said Graber, the agency official. The November 2004 U.S. offensive in Fallujah, for example, sent more than 40,000 residents fleeing the city, she said.
Since the Samarra bombing, threats or killings have spurred many families to flee their homes with nothing, not even their ration cards, Graber said. “And there’s no certainty as to when it will be safe again to return, when they can return without their sons getting killed,” she said.
Both Shiite and Sunni families make up the displaced, the immigration agency’s figures show.
My heart aches for these people.
prestigious enough to do justice to Dahr’s work. Unless we are all exploded, one day, there will doubtless be efforts to acknowledge and pay tribute to him, but it is hard to imagine anything worthy of the courage and sacrifice of this one human being, in order to inform anyone who will listen of the reality of man’s inhumanity to his brothers and sisters.
Those who pray, please keep him in your prayers, for his safety, and that of his loved ones, and a long, prosperous and happy life.
Thanks Arcturus, for posting this here.
Happy to.
Flashpoints broadcast a good snippet of his talk (along with Jeremey Schaill — another journalist to keep one’s eyes peeled for their dispatches) in Sacramento a few weeks ago. Worth a listen!
Here’s the blurb for the show:
.
Report and lead from Dutch radio ::
Opening with DynCorp International in Kabul, Afghanistan
DynCorp International currently has an opening for an International Advisor. The successful candidate will work on our Poppy Elimination Program operating out of Kabul, Afghanistan. This program will be in conjunction with the US Dept. of State and Afghanistan’s MOI in ongoing efforts to eradicate illegal opium poppy cultivation throughout the country.
The program will deploy teams to 7 key opium-producing provinces. The International Advisor will assist their respective province in the ongoing information campaign to dissuade farmers from planting and subsequently cultivating poppy. The employee must be able to empower the governor and his staff so that he plays an active role in the elimination of poppy cultivation in his province.
U.S. Memo Faults Afghan Leader on Heroin Fight
● Columbia Aerial Eradication Aircraft Program by Spraying Crops – Dyncorp (pdf file)
≈ Cross-posted from my diary — Report: U.K. Cheated Afghan Poppy Growers ≈
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
A first recognition for blogging – the Aronson Awards for Social Justice Journalism are announced.
Congratulations to Prof. Juan Cole and his “Informed Comment” blog on receiving the first Aronson Award for blogging from Hunter College.
Kudos to the good professor.